On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) held an internal event on March 7th in collaboration with the institute’s Equity Committee. The event joined the International Women's Day 2023 campaign theme: #EmbraceEquity.

The event was arranged as an informal way of sharing experiences and ideas on gender equality and gender perspective, not only in science, but in all areas in life. At the beginning, Vanessa Graber, Equity Committee chair and postdoctoral fellow, gave an introductory talk mentioning data on the gender gap in STEM and some gender-segregated statistics compiled by the CSIC Women and Science Commission of the staff at different levels within CSIC.

After this talk, we held a round table composed by women working in different fields of the institute to discuss inequalities faced by women in general and as part of their career in science and other fields and aspects of their lives. The round table featured Estel Cardellach (Scientific Staff), Simranpreet Kaur (PhD researcher), Celsa Pardo (Equity committee member and PhD researcher) and Maribel Ripoll (Administration staff), and was moderated by Alba Calejero (Communication & Outreach).

In the first block of the round table, through past experiences we opened a discussion on gender bias at schools, maternity leaves in different countries, the impact of motherhood in the scientific career (and other fields), the impostor syndrome in women, racism in academia, etc. In the second block, we focused on the future ahead and we discussed more about the workplace, the administration job as a feminised sector and the Gender Equality Plans at CSIC.