W-STEM - Building the future of Latin America: engaging women into STEM

The participation of Women in STEM in the Latin-America region is a very complex problem in which necessarily call for actions from different actors, such as governments, private sector, families, as well the different levels of education (since childhood to higher education). 
In order to make concrete contribution, Higher Education Institutions need to focus on those needs and situations in which it has certain influence for making real progress, such as:

• Significant minority of Women choose and access to STEM programs at tertiary level. The lowest rates appears in science and engineering programs.  
• Data is scarce, showing a need for analytical and systematic methods, which reflect actual participation of women in STEM at HEIs.  
• Tertiary studies with a high math component such as STEM seem to be excluded from the studies options by girls in secondary schools. 
• Lack of bridges between public policy and institutional actions led by HEIs. 

In this way, and aligned to the Erasmus + Capacity Building priority for improving management and operation of higher education,  in terms of access to and democratization of Higher Education, the W‐STEM Project aims at Improving strategies and mechanisms of attraction, access and guidance of Women in Latin-American STEM Higher Education programs.  
For achieving this main objective, W-STEM project, will 

• Measure the gender equality in enrolment and retention rates in STEM programs.
• Implement Universities’ policies, strategies and organizational mechanisms for improving attraction, access and guidance at undergraduate levels in STEM programs. 
• Promote STEM studies vocation and choice in girls and young women in secondary schools as well as guidance in the first year of the STEM program. 
• Develop an online training package for Higher Education Institutions to implement effective strategies to enhance attraction, access and guidance of Women in STEM programs.