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Meet the founders of StepWide and hear from them about the programme’s main goals

StepWide was founded by Marta, Laura and Cemre.

Marta Costa is a Research Associate at Lucy Cavendish College and Senior Research Associate at the Department of Zoology. She did her undergrad in Biology in Lisbon, Portugal, followed by an MSc in Neuroscience at UCL in London. She then moved to Cambridge for her PhD, followed by a postdoc.

Laura Fachal is a Research Associate at Lucy Cavendish College, Senior Staff Scientist at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. She earned her BS in Veterinary, MSc in Biotechnology and PhD from University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She completed her postdoc at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, University of Cambridge.

Cemre Ustunkaya was a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. She earned her BSc in Biological Science, followed by an MSc in Archaeometry at Middle East Technical University, Turkey. She later moved to Australia for her PhD in Archaeology at The University of Queensland. She is currently based at the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) in Spain.

“We met at The Postdocs of Cambridge (PdOC) Society, at the University of Cambridge, UK. When the Researcher Development (RD) Pitch Competition was announced in late 2018, we felt it provided the ideal opportunity to work together to develop a leadership programme for women postdocs. We saw a gap in the current leadership RD provision, with a lack of opportunities that challenge current leadership views. While there is a clear gender bias in the academic ladder, the existing initiatives are aimed at permanent University employees, to the detriment of the postdoc community. That is why we decided to put together a proposal ‘The researchers’ sisterhood: supporting the next generation of women researchers’ (StepWide). The programme was designed to, not only develop women early career researchers’ leadership skills, but also to encourage them to promote themselves, increasing their visibility and potential to become a role model. In addition, we wanted to create a peer-to-peer network, as an invaluable support system between our participants. The proposal was successful and we obtained funding for a one year pilot, giving rise to the StepWide programme. StepWide ran for the first time in 2019/2021. We are currently exploring options for securing the funding needed to run the workshop programme next year.

Our main goals were for the participants to (i) question and broaden current and constrained ideas about leadership and reflect, if given that, the leadership path is a possible one;  (ii) create a network of cis and trans women academics, with similar experiences; and finally (iii) develop the confidence and skills that will allow you to increase your visibility, improving promotion and progression. These goals are aligned with the structure of the whole programme, which includes (i) a three-day leadership and communication workshop; (ii) creation of a peer-to-peer network using a messaging app ; and (iii) creation of a website that showcased, initially, the public profiles of the participants, but now has been expanded to any women early career researcher affiliated to the University of Cambridge or partner institutions.

We are ultimately aiming to support women postdoctoral researchers, from any discipline, who feel that taking a step into leadership is not for them. The programme has been designed to suit both early and more senior postdocs, providing them with the skills to challenge the current ideas of what a leader is, learn how to raise their public profiles, as well as a close and supportive network of postdoc women.

StepWide workshop

We have just launched a new and improved version of the StepWide website, making it easier to search the profiles for particular people or skills. The site is not only a good way for researchers to showcase their skills and knowledge, but also serves as a database of experts to be used by the University and media. The website launch was also accompanied by the launch of our new Twitter account (@step_wide), which will be used to share, weekly, the three spotlighted profiles in the website. We are keen to expand the number of profiles on the site, and so we would encourage any cis or trans postdoc women, from the collegiate University or affiliated institutes to submit a profile.”