MASSTEAM: STEAM Asturian Women

MASSTEAM proposes the following objectives:

• To raise students' awareness through real experiences of collaboration with female researchers, engineers, technologists and STEAM professionals of the environment.
• To increase the participation of Asturian companies and business associations in the implementation of activities that encourage and promote scientific, technological and innovation culture.
• Encourage scientific-technological studies and professional development opportunities around STEAM competences in students in general, and in female students in particular.
• Encourage the attractiveness of STEAM studies, also in Vocational Training.
• To generate an inclusive environment of participation by fostering collaboration and sharing of real STEAM experiences between girls and boys.
• To provide Asturian companies in the long term with qualified professionals according to the needs of the current and future labor market.

To achieve these objectives MASSTEAM articulates the following actions:

• Meetings with STEAM professionals: different sessions in the participating schools, conducted by professionals (engineers, technologists...) who are working in the STEAM field.
• Competition of innovative projects: aimed at solving different challenges, with creative, innovative and technology-based ideas.
• Professional mentoring in companies: designed so that the finalist teams can experience STEAM professional profiles first-hand, accompanied by mentors belonging primarily to the sponsoring companies.
• Final event in which the finalist projects are defended and the event is complemented with a round table with relevant women in the STEAM field.
• Dissemination campaign in different media throughout the project.

MASSTEAM is part of:

Early-stage data anticipate that gaps carry over into the working career: the probability of aspiring at age fifteen to having a STEAM career at age 30 is 12.7% lower for girls than for boys, a gap that does not change when taking into account achievement level.

The rates of women out of the total number of people enrolled in STEAM university degrees does not reach 50% in almost any caseo and in certain degrees the percentages are particularly low: Mathematics (36%), Physics (27%), Telecommunications (23%), Computer Science (13%).

In FP the gap is even deeper: of all male graduates in FP, 52% are in STEAM fields; compared to only 7% of women. In most STEAM degrees, both middle and higher, the male/female ratio is practically 9 to 1.

Data extracted from: "Women in STEM. From basic education to working careers", EsadeEcPol - Center for Economic Policy, March 2024.

These data evidence the need for initiatives such as MASSTEAM to guide and promote young talent and especially female talent towards STEAM studies.