To increase the participation of women to the work force and increase their rate of employment in line with the Europe 2020 strategy.

Europe 2020 strategy defined the goal of employment rate of 75% of the population aged between 20 and 64 years by 2020. At present, EU member states are still far from reaching this target, in particular for women, whose employment rate in EU is 65% with many differences between member states. We want to achieve the goal through exchange of knowledge and best practices among a network of EU cities and research and experimentation of new approaches to boost female employment. This requires to act at different levels, promoting a social transformation, improved conditions and a new “job culture” enabling women to become protagonists in all economic and employment sectors, in a medium- and long-term perspective. A particular attention will be given to the relationship between women and STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, disciplines that play an increasingly fundamental role in global economy, but where women are still underrepresented, with an ineligible economic gap and where family preconceptions profoundly affect, starting from choice of school and university. This is bad for everyone – not just women – because it limits the diversity of ideas and perspectives in some of the most important, creative, and productive areas of our society; it doesn’t generate basic cognitive innovation for change and produces few "positive feminine examples" to pass to new generations.