Cambridge AWiSE held its 2007-2008 AGM on the 10th February 2009 at Lucy Cavendish College. The meeting was extremely
well attended and proved a fantastic opportunity to network as well as hear about Cambridge AWiSE and what we were up to last year.
Chair's Report - Dr. Jenny Brookman
Our big success this year was obtaining, with WiSETI, a grant from the University's 800 Fund celebrating 800 years of the
University of Cambridge. This grant will enable us to hold three events during 2009 focusing on the History of
Women in Science: Past, Present and Future. Great thanks go to Suzanne Doyle-Morris for leading this application.
We are working hard continuing to raise our profile locally to secure further funding. The Judge Business School runs the
MPhil in Management Consultancy Project annually and offers local businesses the opportunity to access the talents of Cambridge
University Masters Degree students from a range of disciplines, and for students to gain first-hand experience of some of
the challenges faced by businesses. Suzanne Doyle-Morris led our successful application to this scheme, aided by Jenny Scott and
we will report on the outcomes of this project in 2008-2009.
Members of the Steering Group have played an important part in Greater Cambridge Partnership meetings focusing on Women in SET in
the Eastern Region. As a result of this, we are now developing contacts with ResNet, the network for Researchers at the University
of East Anglia and on Norwich Research Park and sharing information.
Our stand at Cambridge Science Festival in March proved a great success again. We would like to thank Cambridge Science Festival for
sponsoring our photodisplay of women in SET. This continues to grow and if any of you would like to take part and raise your
profile, please let us know.
Our website continues to be a source of information for women in SET and we can now accept online bookings for our events thanks to
Steering Group member Tanya Morton. Our newsletters are produced every two months and are packed full of interesting news and events.
To help raise the profile of our members, we are now featuring one page articles on our members. These have proved very popular with
readers so please keep them coming. They are a great way to raise your profile!
Funding
Cambridge AWiSE was successful in securing extra funding during 2007-2008. In addition to a second year of funding from the UKRC, we have
received generous donations from The University of Cambridge, The Medical Research Council, the MathWorks and The Royal Society of
Chemistry. These are detailed in our Annual Report.
Steering Group Membership Last updated 10th March 2009
First of all, my thanks to the members of the Steering Group for their support in the continued activities of the
Cambridge AWiSE network, and in particular, to our coordinator Lucy Spokes for her organisation and enthusiasm.
News, Events and Meetings
In 2007-2008 we held 14 networking meetings and events covering a wide variety of topics. These are detailed in our Annual report, on
our website and in our newsletters. Here I give a summary of the highlights.
We celebrated International Women's Day in style in 2008. Our meeting, Creativity and Innovation addressed how we can develop the
personal strengths of scientists to produce the best teams and innovative and creative research. Our meeting was held in honour of
Dr. Anne McLaren, who was a wonderful role model for women and President of AWiSE until her death. We'd like to thank our speakers
Dr. Melanie Lee (Executive Vice-President, Research and Development, UCB-Celltech), Dr. Ruth Cameron (Joint Director of the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, University of Cambridge
and Dr. Sabine Bahn, Director of Cambridge Centre for Neuropsychiatric Research, University of Cambridge and founder Psynova Ltd) and
PiR Interims and
The Greater Cambridge Partnership for supporting this event.
We have continued to collaborate with Cambridge Business Women's Network and with WiSETI, the University of Cambridge Women in Science,
Engineering and Technology Initiatve and have held our first joint meeting at the MRC-Laboratory for Molecular Biology on the Addenbrookes Site.
This was supported by the MRC Women in Science Group and looked at successful careers outside academia. We already have plans in
place for future joint events with all of these groups in 2008-2009.
Accounts
Cambridge AWiSE accounts for the year 2007-2008 area shown in the Annual report. Accounts were audited in June 2008.
Jenny Brookman was unanimously re-elected as Chair. Esther Haines took on the role of Deputy Treasurer and Rachel Thomas was elected Secretary.
We'd like to thank everyone who volunteered for the Steering Group for 2008-2009 and we look forward to a great year ahead.
The next Steering Group Meeting is Tuesday 10th March 2009.