4th Edition of the Cecilia Castaño Award (GenTIC)

The Gender and ICT (GenTIC) research group at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya is launching a new call for the Cecilia Castaño Awards with the aim of promoting gender equality in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and more broadly in science and technology (STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Since 2022, GenTIC has promoted this call to recognize the best research studies, in any academic discipline, whose subject matter relates to the study of gender inequalities in science and technology, and which provide relevant knowledge on the participation of women in STEM fields. Doctoral theses or academic articles linked to doctoral thesis results, and master's degree final projects or academic articles linked to the results of a master's degree final project, are eligible for the award.

Research works can be submitted in English, Catalan, or Spanish until November 16, 2025.

The candidate that ranks first as the best doctoral thesis or academic article linked to doctoral thesis results will receive a prize of €2,400, and the one classified first as the best master's thesis (TFM) or academic article linked to TFM results will receive a prize of €600.

Check out the terms and conditions for the Cecilia Castaño Awards and how to participate here.

For any questions, contact Gender and ICT at gentic@uoc.edu.

About Cecilia Castaño

Honorary professor of Applied Economics at the Complutense University of Madrid (Faculty of Political Science and Sociology). In 2006, she created the Gender and ICT research programme at the UOC's Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3). That same year, together with Juan Martín Fernández, María Ángeles Sallé (Fundación Directa), Susana Vázquez y José Luis Martínez Cantos, she launched the e-Equality Observatory of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), which for five years produced annual reports on the digital gender gap, the participation of women in the information society (La segunda brecha digital, 2008; La brecha digital de género. Amantes y distantes, 2009) and different annual reports of the e-Equality Observatory that each year addressed a specific topic. Her research work has had a social impact on the promotion of initiatives and political actions for gender equality both in the digital field of information and communication technologies and in the field of science and technology (STEM). In addition, throughout her career, Cecilia Castaño has led the creation of various training programs with a gender perspective at the university level. She is currently a member of the Gender Gap Advisory Council of the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, which was created in 2024 to advise on public policy decisions falling within the Ministry's remit from a gender perspective, particularly those aimed at reducing the gender gap.

Have a look at the contributions of Cecilia Castaño here.