Her Majesty Queen Letizia welcomes a working group from the Women's STEM Sustainable Mobility Professorship

• The recently-created professorship will be hosted by Comillas ICAI to promote uptake of STEM subjects by young girls, particularly in the area of vocational training for sustainable mobility
• Although more than half of all university students are women, less than 26% of them study for STEM degrees, and just 1.4% in vocational training
• This new public-private initiative is designed to create a strategic, ground-breaking alliance

Iberdrola, through its Foundation in Spain, in collaboration with Madrid's Municipal Transport Company and the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, has launched a professorship to encourage female participation in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) vocations, particularly regarding vocational training in sustainable mobility and providing the necessary resources. The first meeting of the working group from the STEM Women's Professorship was held this morning.

Among its objectives, the STEM Women's Professorship will explore the reasons why so few women study STEM subjects, the suitability of academic contents to cover the demand for these graduates in EMT and Iberdrola. It will also drive the cultural and social changes needed to encourage women to opt for this area and conduct studies of employability, quality and the success of different profiles in STEM degrees. Statistics show that while more than half of all university students are women, fewer than 26% choose to study STEM subjects. What's more, although just under 14% of young people study Basic and Intermediate Vocational Training, less than 33% are women and less than 1.4% choose STEM.

Over the next two years, among other scheduled initiatives, reports will be issued on the situation in Spain and in other countries, including success stories, and vocational guidance conferences will be organised to steer young women towards STEM. There will also be multidisciplinary workshops to encourage then to develop these skills, and support for projects leading to research and innovation in the field of education to promote the acquisition of STEM skills.

The Professorship is notably multidisciplinary, involving expert engineers from Comillas ICAI and experts in Education and Social Sciences from the University, as well as being hosted by a university known for its steadfast commitment to STEM subjects. It also underlines Comillas' commitment to companies with a growing demand for women in technical positions. Collaborations between the university and companies in numerous professorships and initiatives make Comillas the leading university for employability in Spain, the second in Europe and the seventh in the world, according to the prestigious QS World University Ranking 2021.

With this ground-breaking public-private initiative, Iberdrola and EMT are aiming to satisfy both companies' needs to include women in two essential strategic areas: mobility and sustainability. To collaborate with the Professorship's activities, Iberdrola and EMT will provide funding while the Universidad Pontificia Comillas will grant the use of its facilities to host all the educational activities.