Home > RACI News

Sharing a Chemical Moment in Time

Australian women chemists helped to kick start the International Year of Chemistry in grand style on the 18 January.

As a prequel to the official celebrations in Paris on January 27 and 28, the International networking event Women Sharing a Chemical Moment in Time took place in forty four different countries.

Many countries took the opportunity to use the event to plan contributions to IYC, although the publicised dual themes of the event were to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Marie Curie, and to reflect on the current landscape for Women in Chemistry. Worldwide there were over 100 different breakfasts, and at a rough guess, about 5000 women chemists were likely involved.

Professor Mary Garson, from the University of Queensland launched the initiative early in 2010 for UNESCO, “I might have hoped for about 10 countries to join in, so to have more than 40 was extraordinary, and made the work involved worthwhile. UNESCO were delighted at the response and involvement, and have commissioned a short video of clips from various of the breakfasts that will be shown during the official IYC launch in Paris this week. I am currently in Paris providing them with feedback, and I can make sure that Australian chemistry women get a nice mention!”

In Australia, breakfasts were held in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, Brisbane, Perth and Wollongong. International connections were made with New Zealand, Beijing, Singapore, and Taiwan. The chemical handshake relay then passed across to Europe, Africa, and then into South America. From North America, links were made across the Pacific via Hawaii, and back to New Zealand (where it had started the day before). Every country arranged their individual event to suit the needs of their own audience, and many of them were able to attract local media attention. Unfortunately the Brisbane floods stopped any media coverage in Australia.

From the international Skype links made, and from the many messages received since the event, it is clear that there was also a genuine mood of community togetherness created on the day. We hope that the enthusiasm and interest in IYC generated by the event will translate into ongoing strong support for IYC within the Australian chemical community.

Professor Garson stated that “An important outcome was the reminder to women chemists that they should step up and take a role in their own professional societies; the leadership opportunities that are created by working on professional society business are worthwhile as they are beneficial to career development.”

Feedback from the networking breakfasts around Australia

QLD:

We were successful in making contact with Melbourne and Perth. We then linked up with Beijing and shared an excellent speech from Professor Vivian Yam, one of five laureates (one per continent) of the 2011 L'Oreal-UNESCO Women Scientist Award, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World. We also spoke to Dr Richard Pike, CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Later some of us made contact with Singapore and Taipei.

We noted with enthusiasm the tweets from NZ. Thank you. We were sorry not to speak with Sydney, Clayton or Hobart as originally intended.

Our audience was very diverse – government, industry, education, university, and covered all age ranges. Uptake by postgraduate students was disappointing relative to other groups, and suggests that we need to explain to them some more about the benefits of belonging to a professional society such as RACI (or NZIC for that matter).

Mary Garson, University of Queensland

NSW:

Skyping with Adelaide, NZ and National office went well. We had about 50 attend, and all made the most of the networking opportunity. It was great to have the NSW chief scientist meet all our attendees. Attendees seemed to enjoy the morning and I have received a number of emails conveying good feedback. Similar to Qld we struggled to get students and post grads to attend but all in all a great morning.

Edwina Hine, RACI NSW

WA:

The Perth breakfast was attended by 52 chemists (including 3 men!) and was opened by WA Chief Scientist Professor Lyn Beazley. Professor Beazley gave a fantastic speech highlighting the significant contribution of women to chemistry and Western Australia, and also reflecting on the achievements of Marie Curie. Our Skype links to Brisbane, Taipei and Singapore all worked well (we had some problem with video in Taiwan, but we could talk ok).

We were particularly pleased that a variety of sectors were well represented, including academia, education and teaching, industry and analytical laboratories, government, research organisations, and a number of postgraduate and undergraduate students. We got about 11 students out of 52 all up, which is certainly good attendance by students for a Perth RACI event.

Feedback about the breakfast and the ‘Women Sharing a Chemical Moment in Time’ event has been extremely positive and there have been several requests to make the breakfast an annual event! I also enjoyed participating by twitter afterwards and watching the chemical handshake pass around the world.

Kathryn Linge, Curtin University

From the Philosophically Disturbed blog by Mags:

The best part about this morning was not the networking or catching up with colleagues. Don’t get me wrong, that was wonderful but when surveying the room I noticed something. The crowd was young, exuberant and the atmosphere was buoyant. There were so many smiles and handshakes as people introduced each other before entering a conversation. I admit to having fears about whether there were chemists younger than me coming through. This morning showed me that there are, and that they are intelligent and bring a new point of view to Chemistry. I welcome and cherish that.

Click here for more from this blog
*image courtesy of Magdeline Lum

SA:

We managed a one on one with Sydney, Melbourne and Massey. Our group of 18 came from all sectors of chemistry which included a Kiwi, Brisbanite and supporting males. The feedback was all positive and I had to extend the time due to people not wanting to leave. We have a "Women in Engineering" conference in July here in Adelaide so we will be putting together another networking breakfast.
An excellent initiative, my deepest gratitude to you all.

Tatiana Anesbury, Flinders University