Public body mentoring: encouraging women to play a part in SET decision making

In the UK, women continue to be under-represented in public life. Although women do gain public appointments, increasing the rate of progress is very slow. For Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) related public appointments the participation of women continues to be lower than that in over all public appointments. The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) has been working since 2005 to improve women's representation specifically on SET related public bodies with a strategy that tackles both the supply and demand for women. This article focuses on a mentoring scheme, first launched in 2007 to supportwomen who are interested in gaining a public appointment, by helping to build confidence and knowledge in the recruitment process and to show the reality of public body work once appointed. The mentoring scheme, which lasts six months, has run three times achieving 75 partnerships between women mentees aspiring to participate in a public body with women and men as mentors who are alreadyserving on public bodies. Each of the three rounds has had an accompanying evaluation questionnaire completed by both mentors and mentees. The data from these questionnaires helps to provide an insight into the continuing and complex barriers to achieving gender diversity in public life as well as the benefit from mentoring in this situation.