1.8 Offer supervision of master thesis or paid master thesis contract with a focus on female students
Content
Description of Best Practices
Identify topics of interest to the company that may be addressed through a master thesis project with a relevant cooperating university program with a focus on female students with diverse social identities (require university to include a minimum participation of 50 percent women in the program)
Provide a well-trained and gender-aware mentor from the company who can serve as a role model while supporting the master thesis student during research and writing
Selected mentors should include a good proportion of women from the technical fields
Develop intro sessions or short trainings for master thesis mentors to ready them with mentoring soft skills and gender awareness to support young women
Create high-quality master thesis program with a clear structure and dedicate sufficient resources (see recommendations for mentorship programs)
Challenges of Implementation
May be difficult to find suitable topics for a master thesis, acceptable to both the company and university faculty
Mentors may be reluctant to interact with women students due to cultural norms and/or corporate culture
Universities’ awareness on the importance of including women students may be low
Student may need intensive support and access to stakeholders within the company to be able to fulfil the assignment
Required non-disclosure of some data can interfere with the validity of the research
What Success Looks Like
Company establishes strong university relationships to source students from both genders with a minimum 50/50 sex ratio
Company establishes a positive image amongst students and especially young women - verified by higher numbers of students interested in having a master thesis contract
Increased number of female student participants get exposure to core business topics important to the company
Increased numbers of female student participants apply for open positions and are hired
Increased number of company personnel volunteers to mentor women master thesis students and proactively ask for students to support business topics
Resources and Tools
Example: Students and Starters (Vattenfall)