Space4Women
Research and technical advisory activities
Space4Women facilitates institutional capacity building and provides relevant advice, knowledge, awareness raising, research, and data to institutions and governments for women in the space sector. This includes access to and use of space-technology in order to train, generate skills, and transfer knowledge to women on both institutional and individual levels. The research and tools developed directly stem from the recommendations of the Space4Women Expert Meetings.
To accomplish this, we aim to:
- Encourage women and girls, involving their parents, to pursue STEM education.
- Open doors for entry into the space sector.
- Review national legislations and protect women's rights with maternity benefits and job security while on pregnancy and parental leave.
- Promote equality and gender parity in private and public organizations from entry level jobs to leadership roles.
- Facilitate educational programs and initiatives at grass-roots level to ensure that all women and girls have equal access to opportunities regardless of their status and position.
- Provide incentives to companies for reaching goals related to gender equality and gender parity.
- Address SDGs in particular SDG 5: Gender Equality and SDG 4: Quality Education using space-related science, technology, innovation, and exploration to improve sustainability within agriculture, climate change, disaster response, transportation, health, communication, and others.
Our work
Find our main deliverables below.
The Gender Mainstreaming Toolkit for the Space Sector was developed in 2024 thanks to the generous support from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The Toolkit aims to strengthen the capacity of the global space community to undertake gender mainstreaming efforts to address underlying systemic gender inequalities, at various levels and contexts. This means supporting organizations taking measures to increase the representation of women as well as creating enabling environments where women can thrive. It provides simple and practical measures, examples and tools to help people who are not gender specialists adapt gender mainstreaming efforts to their unique situations.
The Landmark Study on Gender Equality in the Global Space Sector is a one-of-a-kind research initiative that aims to constitute a landmark database on women's representation in the space sector and was made possible through the support of the Republic of Korea (Koea AeroSpace Administration/Korean Aerospace Research Institute). Published in 2024, the first phase of the Study quantifies for the first time the participation of women in the public space sector. Overall, this research finds that women represent only 30% of public space sector organisations globally. Women's representation declines at higher levels, with women representing only 24% of managers, 21% of leaders (defined as c-suite or executive roles) and 19% of board positions. As such, women remain largely below a 'critical mass' in the global space sector. The Toolkit is available in English and French versions, and soon in Arabic and Russian.
Published in 2025, the second research phase aims to dive into qualitative aspects of women's representation in the space sector and looks at the perception of women and the various barriers they encountered while entering and working in the space sector, globally. This research finds substantial challenges that require urgent action to make all roles and parts of the space sector safe, respectful, and conducive not only to representing the full breadth of humanity, but ensuring the sector can use the full range of diversity's benefits. This second phase also provides a first quantitative landscape of the participation of women in the private space sector and showcases unique insights from a selection of New Space actors who are punching above their weight when it comes
to many metrics around gender equality. The third research phase is currently ongoing and expected for August 2026. Stay tuned!