For the fourteenth year in a row, the national scholarship program “For Women in Science” organized by L’Oréal Adria and the Croatian Commission for UNESCO at the Ministry of Culture has been encouraging the excellence of young Croatian scientists in the development of science.
Given the current situation with the coronavirus pandemic in the world, the importance of continuous investment in science and excellence has once again come to the fore. The world needs innovation and scientific solutions more than ever, and one of the programs that supports them is the National Scholarship Program “For Women in Science”.
In 2020, the Election Commission selected four talented scientists in the field of natural sciences: Lidija Kanižaj (Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb), Antonia Ressler (Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb), Anamarija Šestak (Faculty of Medicine, JJ Strossmayer University in Osijek) and Nataša Vučemilović-Alagić (Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb).
The scholarship recipients were awarded for their contribution to the creation of a knowledge society with a one-time individual scholarship of 5,000 euros in kuna equivalent. Scholarships represent a kind of reward for their achievements and contributions to the creation of a knowledge society, and also serve to further motivate them in their further scientific careers.
According to the UNESCO Statistical Office’s report for 2019, the share of women among researchers globally is only 29.3 percent, while according to data published in the European Commission’s statistical report, She Figures 2018, only one third of women researchers in the European Union. Croatia is one of the few countries where these differences are less than 0.5 percent.
This positive statistic was certainly contributed by the National Scholarship Program L’Oréal – UNESCO “For Women in Science”, which at the end of this year rewarded 54 outstanding Croatian scientists in the final phase of writing doctoral dissertations in natural sciences, including interdisciplinary fields.