Gender Equality to Support Resilient Communities
Advancing the renewable heating and cooling (RHC) landscape
Join our workshop aimed at promoting gender equality and fostering inclusive environments for women’s participation in renewable energy, energy efficiency, resilient communities, and STEAM (Science, Technology, Energy, Arts, and Mathematics) fields, with a particular focus on renewable heating and cooling.
5th of July 13.15 – 14.45
The workshop is designed to gather insights and develop actionable policy recommendations that drive meaningful change, empowering diversity and providing equal opportunities for all individuals, regardless of gender. As part of the W4RES project and in collaboration with SUPER-i, the workshop will specifically explore how the EU and its Member States can help create a more competitive, inclusive, and gender-responsive RHC landscape.
The workshop will address strategies and mechanisms that bridge the gender gap in RHC and encourage collaboration and mentorship among women across different levels of seniority. During the workshop, relevant cases will be presented by three leading and inspiring speakers, offering valuable insights and perspectives on urban feminism, energy management and public private partnerships, and the importance of RHC in achieving sustainable and resilient communities.
Following the speaker sessions, we will facilitate three interactive sessions. The first session will focus on identifying and discussing the barriers that women face in the STEAM fields with focus on the RHC sector, including challenges related to workforce diversity, access to training and education, and career progression. The second session will explore potential solutions for increasing women’s participation in STEAM fields with focus on the RHC sector, such as targeted mentorship programs, awareness campaigns, and policy interventions.
Finally, we will collectively distill our discussions into concrete recommendations targeting authorities and policymakers in the EU and its Member States, with the ultimate goal of effecting significant change and enhancing gender readiness in the STEAM fields and especially the RHC sector.
We highly value diversity, so we encourage individuals of all genders, colors, and ages to actively participate. Your lived experiences are invaluable contributions to our policy recommendations. Let’s work together towards a substantiable future.
This workshop is organized as part of the W4RES project and in collaboration with the SUPER-i project, aimed at promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency in the EU.
Location:
UIA Congress
Bella Center, room B3 M1-2
Copenhagen, Denmark
Program:
13.15: Welcome
13.25: “Intersectional Feminism in the Built Environment” by Asal Mohtashami
13.35: “Strategies for Democratic Energy Management” by Ivana Veselinova
13.45: ”Applications of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Models from the SUPER-I Project” by Paola Zerilli
13.55: Workshop pt. 1: Barriers for women in the STEAM fields.
14.10: Workshop pt. 2: Solutions for getting more women into the STEAM fields
14.25: Workshop pt. 3: Formulation of actionable policy recommendations
14.40: Evaluation
14.45: Thank you and goodbye
Host:
W4RES
SUPER-i
European Green Cities
The workshop is free with entrance to the UIA Congress, but please register below.
Asal Mohtashami is a Luxembourgish-Iranian architect and urbanist based in Copenhagen, Denmark. She holds a Masters of Art from Urbanism and Societal Change from the Royal Danish Academy and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from The Technical University of Munich.
In 2020 Asal founded AIMING SPACES, an architectural practice focusing on social sustainability and participatory processes. Her scope lies within intersectional feminism in architecture and urban planning and in her work, she focuses on involving the users and working closely with all the stakeholders and collaborators.
Since 2021 Asal is part “Building Diversity”, an association focusing on promoting diversity and equality within the architectural field and the built environment.
Photographer Victor Dupont
Dr Paola Zerilli (F) is Associate Professor in Finance at the University of York. Her expertise is in applied financial econometrics with a focus on energy derivatives.
She has direct experience with financial markets as she worked for a number of years as a trader on Italian Treasury bonds at Credit Agricole Indosuez, Milan branch. She is currently Director of the MSc in Financial Engineering and has been Scientific Coordinator of the XPRESS project (Support for Public Procurements to facilitate the collaboration between SMEs and public sector for the development, and adoption in renewables in regions) funded under the EU Commission H2020 programme.
Dr Zerilli is Coordinator and Scientific Coordinator of the SUPER-i project funded by the EU Commission H2020 programme. The general objective of SUPER-i is to support the funding of EE (Energy Efficient) refurbishment of social housing stocks across Europe while increasing the share of renewable energy in the final energy consumption. She is also Scientific Coordinator of the Horizon Europe projects SUPERSHINE (extension of SUPER-i focused on social housing districts) and MARINEWIND.
Ivana Veselinova, a Building Engineer coming from Macedonia, is a Technical Researcher at RIMOND. Her academic journey at The Polytechnic University of Milan and research activities at INSA Lyon, have equipped her with a solid foundation to tackle complex challenges present in structural engineering, energy efficiency and monitoring of buildings. Ivana joined RIMOND Innovation Lab as a technical researcher wanting to explore the practice of a multidisciplinary environment, both in research and practical activity.
As part of RIMOND, she anticipates a diverse range of working activities related to integrated building engineering. She has grown experience in structural engineering and assessment of building and user energy demand. She is working on building energy Digital Twins, evaluating user behaviour through monitoring-simulation data analysis, and developing digitalized and model frameworks conceived as “digital bridges” between BIM and simulation environments.
These models and procedures are developed and tested for real design applications as well as conducted as scientific systematic activities in the context of research programs (i.e. EU Horizon2020, Horizon Europe, Life) and scientific papers. Her current mission is to scale the application of her experience to the creation of energy communities, assessing, and optimizing their energy flow shared by the consumers and prosumers. Finally, Ivana is determined to embark on a path of research expansion encompassing urban regeneration initiatives including social housing and positive energy districts.
