Promotion of women in science: the Soapbox Science outreach platform in Belgium
- 1Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), Brussels, Belgium (christine.bingen@aeronomie.be)
- 2Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels (ORB-KSB), Belgium (soapboxsciencebrussels@oma.be)
Soapbox Science is quite a novel public outreach platform that was initiated in the UK in 2011 to promote women in science, and that was spread worldwide since then. Between 2011 and 2018, 40 cities hosted the initiative in not less than 8 countries over 4 continents, and in 2020, despite the pandemic, 56 events were organized in 14 countries around the world.
In 2019, a small team of scientists and science communicators from two Belgian Scientific Federal Institutes decided to organise a Soapbox Science event in Belgium to promote the visibility and the role of women in science in Belgium. The first Belgian event took place in fall 2020, not in the centre of Brussels as initially planned, but as a virtual event live-streamed via YouTube and Facebook due to physical limitations imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
We present an overview of the preparation and the conduct of this first Soapbox Science Brussels event, and describe the motivations, challenges, issues and opportunities encountered throughout the process, as well as the outcome and perspectives of Soapbox Science in Belgium.
How to cite: Bingen, C., Pham, L. B. S., Lamort, L., Lefever, K., Piccialli, A., and Yseboodt, M.: Promotion of women in science: the Soapbox Science outreach platform in Belgium, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-8010, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-8010, 2021.
