Motives And Objectives

For many years, in addition to the research and publication activities in their own areas, the female faculty members in Istanbul Technical University also had an important contribution to the topics of  gender equality. As an example, ITU was one of the seven partner universities from six countries (Hungary, Austria, Estonia, Finland, Italy and Turkey) of the UNICAFE (Survey of the University Career of Female Scientists at Life Sciences versus Technical Universities), an EU FP6 project held between 2006-2008, aiming to study the situation of women academics in Engineering and Science. ITU hosted the final conference of this project in November 2008 and the Meeting of European Women Rectors I which was executed just before it. The final conference of the study entitled “Towards Gender Equality in Employment: Politics of Compromising the Work and Family Life”, was also held in Istanbul Technical University on May 27 2009 with the participation of the experts from six countries. All these works initiated the idea to establish a center in order to utilize the potential for gender equality in Istanbul Technical University. The centre was established by the approval of Turkish Higher Education Council on November 04, 2009.