Women in Digital

Europe’s digital decade: digital targets for 2030

The Digital Decade policy programme 2030 (2022) guides Europe’s digital transformation. It sets up an annual cooperation cycle between the Commission and EU countries to achieve concrete targets and common objectives for 2030. 

One of the targets is to achieve ‘a digitally skilled population and highly skilled digital professionals, with the aim of achieving gender balance, where: (a) at least 80 % of those aged 16-74 have at least basic digital skills; (b) at least 20 million ICT specialists are employed within the Union, while promoting the access of women to this field and increasing the number of ICT graduates’.

This in turn means increasing the number of girls and women studying ICT and gaining digital skills, whether at school, at university, or through vocational training or reskilling. 

• Report on the state of the Digital Decade 2024

Digital skills 

• The Union of skills package (2025) includes a STEM education strategic plan and an Action plan on basic skills.

  • The STEM education strategic plan aims to:

    • address gender stereotypes and make the areas of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) more appealing to girls and women;
    • facilitate access to STEM education by targeting specific age groups and promoting mentorship programs with role models;
    • modernise STEM education by incorporating interdisciplinary programs, creative problem-solving, and entrepreneurial skills.

    The Commission will launch several initiatives, including:

    • Girls go STEM (2025): a program to attract 1 million girls to STEM studies and professions by 2028;
    • STEM futures (2026): an initiative to identify and share successful STEM education practices, with a focus on girls and women;
    • European STEM week: an event to promote STEM education and reach out to young people, particularly girls and their families, in synergy with EU-funded projects such as the STEAMbrace (funded under Horizon Europe);
    • STEM specialists fellowship: a pilot program to attract top international STEM experts to EU higher education and research institutions.
  • The Action plan on basic skills acknowledges that ‘gender differences impact learning outcomes’ and stresses that ‘societal expectations and gender stereotypes can lead to gender differences in career expectations and influence subject-specific attitudes, motivation and academic performance’. It calls for ‘gender sensitive teaching approaches’. This action plan also has a strong dimension on developing and strengthening digital skills in education.

• The Digital education action plan (2021-2027) sets out a common vision of high-quality, inclusive and accessible digital education in Europe, and aims to support adapting education and training systems of EU countries to the digital age. Under Priority 2 there is a specific action on women’s participation in STEM (action 13) to support young female students in developing their digital and entrepreneurship competences.

  As part of this action plan, 2 Council Recommendations were adopted in November 2023. The Council Recommendations on improving the provision of digital skills and competences in education and training call on EU countries:

  • to take more concerted action to close the gender gap in the level of digital skills between female and male teachers;
  • to promote diversity and a gender-balanced uptake and reduce any possible stereotype in the teaching and learning of informatics or computational thinking;
  • to tackle gender bias in ICT and provide upskilling and reskilling opportunities for girls and women.
     
• The EU Pact for Skills (2020) includes several Pact partnerships to increase women’s participation in sectors such as digital, microelectronics and defence. The 4th principle of the Pact’s Charter concerns working against discrimination and for gender equality and equal opportunities.
   
• Gender equality in training and the labour market is a key element of the Commission communication on labour and skills shortages in the EU: an action plan (March 2024).
   
• The European Skills Agenda (2020) includes the aim to ensure social fairness by putting into practice the first principle of the European Pillar of Social Rights: access to education, training and lifelong learning for everybody, everywhere in the EU.

 Digital equality for all

• The European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles (2022) commits Europe to seek a fair and inclusive digital transformation that leaves no one behind. Principle 2 on Solidarity and inclusion mentions achieving a gender balance. Principle 4 on Digital education, training and skills mentions bridging the digital gender divide.
   
• The European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan sets out concrete initiatives to turn the European Pillar of Social Rights into reality. It proposes targets for the EU to support a strong social Europe that is fair, inclusive and full of opportunity by 2030.

Gender equality

• A Roadmap for women’s rights (2025) highlights the need for:
  • systematic collection of sex-disaggregated data for planning, designing, implementing, and evaluating public policies, including digital policies and tools;
  • designing and using digital tools mindful of gender equality, bias, and gender stereotypes;
  • encouraging women and girls to acquire digital skills and competences, including in artificial intelligence;
  • making the digital environment, including online platforms, a safe place for women and girls, in all their diversity, free from violence, sexism, hate speech, and harassment.
• The Gender equality strategy 2020-2025 will be replaced by a new one in early 2026.
• The ‘Women in Digital declaration’ (2019) aimed at increasing the number of girls and women working in ICT. 26 EU countries, along with Norway and the United Kingdom, committed to bringing together government, businesses, and the community to ensure more girls and women get a fair chance in the digital world.

Digital skills actions focused on women and girls

• The annual European Digital Skills Awards (EDSA) include a ‘Women in ICT Careers’ category. This is dedicated to projects aimed at increasing the number of women ICT professionals and at upskilling women in ICT. Winners include projects like ‘Girls code it better’, an Italian project bringing girls into tech and STEM.
   
• EU Code Week: a European grassroots initiative, organised annually in October to get especially children and teenagers interested in computer programming and coding, computational thinking, robotics and related digital skills. Code Week encourages girls to participate and highlights women role models in digital careers.
   
• DigiEduHack is a flagship initiative under the Digital Education Action Plan. It wants to empower digital education enthusiasts to develop creative digital solutions to challenges affecting education systems. While open to everybody, the initiative has a strong focus on attracting youth and girls.
   
• The Commission’s Digital skills & jobs platform can help citizens and companies acquire adequate digital skills. It offers resources, articles, training and professional opportunities, such as the Digital skills talks series and other initiatives aimed at girls and women.

Women and girls in Digital

• WIDCON (Connecting Women in Tech) project provides insight into the reasons for the gender gap in ICT professions. It creates a network of experts to identify best practices to increase girls' and women’s participation in ICT studies and professions.
   
• St(R)E(A)M It - Streaming Girls and Women into Steam Education, Innovation and Research is a project to bridge persistent gender gaps in STEM education, research and innovation by implementing the European manifesto for gender-inclusive STE(A)M education and careers.
   
• ESTEAM (Entrepreneurship, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Fests and Communities aims at boosting digital and entrepreneurship competences and confidence building, as well as inspire girls and women to study and take up careers in ESTEAM.
   
• The European Alliance for Apprenticeships (EAfA) has established a community on social inclusion and gender equality to gather like-minded EAfA members who wish to cooperate in this area. The EAfA Community will showcase and exchange good practices and foster mutual learning on attracting and supporting girls and women in STEM apprenticeships.
   
• The Erasmus+ Call for proposals for European policy experimentation (2024) supports projects for developing ways to overcome the obstacles which prevent girls and women from pursuing a VET career in the green or Net-Zero Technology sector. It wants to increase the participation of women in the sector through campaigns, mentoring programmes, career guidance and role models and other activities.

Women in Digital

• EQUALS-EU is a regional partnership originating from the EQUALS Global Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age. EQUALS Global partnership promotes gender balance in the technology sector by championing equality of access, skills development and career opportunities for women and men.
   
• Women4IT is an initiative providing fully funded, individually tailored digital skills training reflecting current market needs.
   
• Women4Cyber Network is part of the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform, a collaboration between the European Commission and the Women4Cyber Foundation. It unites skilled women in cybersecurity from various sectors and expertise levels.
   
• Women4Cyber ‘Mari Kert – St Aubyn’ Foundation is a European cybersecurity organisation with a declaration, awards, mentorship programmes and other projects. It now has national chapters in 30 countries across Europe.
   
• Women TechEU supports deep-tech start-ups led by women offering coaching and mentoring to female founders, as well as targeted funding to help grow their business.
   
• Women in IT Day is a free online event for women to help shape their careers in IT.
   
• E-women in ICT international conference (2023): this Erasmus+ project themed ‘Enhancing Skills to Bridge Digital Divide’ aimed to minimise the gap between men and women related to ICT and entrepreneurial competences and opportunities.
   
• She Figures tracks the progression of women and men in research and innovation (R&I) careers, from education and graduation to professional roles as researchers and inventors. It is the main source of pan-European, comparable statistics on the state of gender equality in R&I and is published every 3 years. She Figures 2024 is the latest version.
   
• The European Network For Gender Balance in Informatics (EUGAIN) is a COST action to improve gender balance in informatics at all levels. It is a European network of people working on gender balance in informatics in their countries and research communities.
   
• Commission library guide on women in science compiles relevant information resources on women in science
   
• Supporting women entrepreneurs is a media campaign by the European Commission on role models in ESTEAM. It wants to inspire girls and women to study and take up careers in entrepreneurship, science and technology.

Girls in Digital

• Girls Go Circular aims to equip 40 000 schoolgirls aged 14-19 across Europe with digital and entrepreneurial skills by 2027 through an online learning programme about the circular economy. The project has reached its goal, with over 60 000 girls trained, and continues to expand.
   
• Women and Girls in STEM Forum | Girls Go Circular: an annual event involving a student challenge organised annually by Girls Go Circular in cooperation with the European Institute for Innovation & Technology.
   
• GirlsInSTEM empowers girls to pursue their interests in science, engineering, technology and maths subjects, providing them with positive examples, support and possibilities to experience STEM occupation.
   
• STEAMbrace: a project addressing the gender gap by promoting a STEAM educational approach for teachers and students at secondary level through a digital networking hub, and a pilot EU-level STEAM week (with a roadmap for annual reproducibility).