April 03, 2024
A reflection on International Women’s Day 2024
Every March, the University of Nottingham celebrates the social, economic, and political achievements of women. This year, we joined in by spotlighting some of the amazing initiatives led by women we have supported and have highlighted a few in the blog below.
Olympia Bekou
Olympia Bekou, a Professor of Public International Law at the University of Nottingham, is working on empowering women survivors of conflict-related sexual violence who are leaders of grassroots organisations to amplify their voices in order to increase their visibility and influence.
Professor Olympia Bekou explains, ‘the views of these women leaders and their organisations feed into decision-making processes regarding sexual and gender-based violence and help shape the fate of children born of war, which presents additional challenges. Our research harnesses the inspirational stories of these women leaders and translates them into policy actions. Bringing women survivor leaders out of the shadows is an issue of global significance, as their insights can influence the responses of the wider international community on issues pertaining to sexual and gender-based violence.’
For #IWD2024, our message is clear: Only through recognition and action at the grassroots level can we strive for a more inclusive and equitable global community for all women.
Helen Kennedy
Creative industry experts from the University of Nottingham and King's College London collaborated to showcase GLOW, a free exhibition that celebrates women’s contribution to innovations in creative and immersive technology. This illuminating innovation opened on 8 March 2024 and it celebrates women’s contribution to innovations in creative and immersive technology.
Professor Helen Kennedy, a Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Nottingham and a researcher that we collaborate with, facilitated a series of events as part of the wider GLOW programme. This included two ‘in conversation’ sessions: 'Critical Curatorial Practices in the Immersive Arts' and 'Tech Trailblazers: Advancing Virtual and Immersive Technologies'.
GLOW is running until the 20th April, for more information head to the website.
Tracey Thornley
With the advent of independent prescribing (IP) becoming mainstream amongst community pharmacists in the next few years, Tracey Thornley, Professor of Health Policy at the University of Nottingham, is working to explore the different accountabilities and responsibilities associated with independent prescribing compared to more traditional pharmacist roles.
Lisa Yon
Lisa Yon is a Associate Professor in Zoo and Wildlife Medicine within the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham as well as the Founding Director of the Elephant Welfare Project.
The Elephant Welfare Project have created a ground-breaking tool to support the wellbeing of elephants being cared for in captivity around the world. Enabling routine behavioural assessments over time the tool allows elephant keeping facilities to monitor identify changes that improve the welfare of their elephants over time.
For more information on Lisa Yon's project, listen to Lisa's episode, The Elephant Welfare Project w/Lisa Yon, on our podcast Knowledge, Engaged or go directly to the Elephant Welfare Project website.
We'd like to thank all our researchers who took part in our International Women's Day campaign and look forward to seeing how the projects progress.