Initiatives of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics to Reduce the Gender Gap in Physics

SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

Simposio; First World meeting for Women in Mathematics (WM)²; 2018

The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) was established in 1922 with 13 member countries. Nowadays, the physics communities of 54 countries are represented at the union. The IUPAP is governed by its General Assembly (GA) which meets triennially. Its top executive body is the Council which supervises the activities of commissions that are organized around physics sub-fields and of temporary working groups that are meant to solve specific problems. The 1999 IUPAP GA approved the creation of the Working Group on Women in Physics to survey the situation of women physicists and to suggest measures to improve it. The Working Group has performed a variety of actions to fulfill its mandate. Based on its recommendations, the IUPAP has taken a series of actions to reduce the gender gap and increase diversity and inclusion in physics. In this paper I briefly describe some of these actions.