New Gender Champions Report Finds Progress Maintained in 2020, Despite Pandemic Challenges

Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy, a project of NTI, was successful in maintaining progress to advance gender equity, a new report released today finds.

Tested by Crisis: Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy is an accounting of 159 unique commitments, each representing actions taken by Gender Champions to elevate the presence, voices, and impact of women in the nuclear policy community in 2020. These commitments ranged from ensuring that curricula included materials representing diverse voices to providing training in equitable recruitment and onboarding practices.

The report found that Gender Champions, the 71 leaders who have committed to advance gender equity in their organization, maintained progress during the pandemic, fully implementing 98 of their 153 commitments. Most strikingly, the report shows that employees of Gender Champions had dramatically better experiences than their peers during the pandemic, dramatically illustrating the power of principled leadership.

“NTI is pleased with this progress and glad that Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy can play an important role in helping us understand the continuing challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. We join all Gender Champions to recommit to promoting gender equity in the nuclear field and work for fairer, more balanced workplaces,” said NTI’s Senior Vice President Carmen MacDougall.

NTI Co-Chair and CEO Ernest J. Moniz and President and COO Joan Rohlfing represent NTI as Gender Champions. In 2020 they made four commitments, each of which was successfully implemented:

• Expand part-time benefits to enable both women and men to better balance work and family responsibilities
• Provide interns with sick leave
• Increase gender relevant training
• Continue NTI’s focus on diversifying its Board, staff, and partners.

You can learn more about Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy here, and follow the project on Twitter.