Key takeaways

On Thursday, 14 January we, Women in Life Science Denmark, had our first Members Meeting in 2025: “Gender equality and diversity in Denmark” – where we had interesting discussions, beginning with a speech from Mr. Magnus Heunicke, Minister for Environment and Gender Equality, who shared his perspective on gender equality.

Main messages from the minister:
1) No, we don’t have gender equality in Denmark, although 60% of the Danish population think that.
2) Lack of gender equality comes back to the cultural level – unfortunately, it is in all of us: at the schools, at the parent’s house, in the sports clubs and in society in general.
3) Even though we claim that our generation is more focused on gender equality than before, this is not enough – we must fight for it in all generations and at all levels.
4) We need to learn from our Nordic colleagues, e.g. on STEM where they are much better of getting women to choose STEM educations.
5) In the EU it is important to fight for women’s rights still, as we see more and more conservative governments coming into power. And a lot more…

Our Peer-to-Peer Network presentations showed clearly that when women come together, something happens. We got tips on how to become a board member, why we should be interested in AI and it was clear from all the Peer-to-Peer Networks: it starts out with our selves – we have to claim the space in top management, in education etc.

Finally, we celebrated our first cohort of mentors and mentees – a Mentor Programme funded by the Lundbeckfonden / Lundbeck Foundation.