(Online) – During Covid, Women in Lighting (WIL) created a one-day virtual event for International Women’s Day, the Global Gathering. Throughout the day, the event shifted focus from Asia Pacific, to Europe, to Middle East, Africa, and the Americas, running alongside a social networking feature where attendees could connect with other members around the world. The popularity of the event meant that it was repeated in 2022.

In 2023, instead of connecting the community together in this way, the project decided to undertake a “Global Gathering” of data instead, launching a survey that hoped to examine the lighting profession in the context of the theme of International Women’s Day 2023 – Embracing Equity. The aim was to gather a comprehensive impression of the lighting industry both in terms of where it was thriving, and where it needed to improve in the area of gender equity. The hope was that the results would provide a valuable contribution to the profession as a whole, or at least create a “line in the sand” for future evaluation and thought.

WIL called upon its community and supporters to assist in creating a global gathering of information by completing a survey, aiming to investigate and ultimately embrace equity in regard to working practice in all aspects of the lighting industry – the survey was open to and welcomed input and information from all genders.

A year on from the survey opening, WIL has published the findings in a Global Gathering report, available to view on the WIL website.

Almost 800 people completed the survey from across 73 countries, with the majority of participants being women (69.1%). Analysing the findings, WIL said: “We learnt that we are not questionnaire experts, and despite the majority of participants making no comment on the survey’s content, a section of people felt the questions weren’t relevant to them, in particular people who were self-employed or in entertainment felt that the survey wasn’t applicable in all instances. We appreciate all the comments as it allows us to improve should we undertake something like this again.

“We are not data experts either, so the pages that follow are not analysed or accompanied by judgement. They just present the data as given and are therefore available for those interested to interpret as useful.

“There are some extremely interesting data slices – some are very positive. For example, it’s great to hear all of the positive policies that many companies have in place. Some are very negative – the high percentage of people reporting on sexism and racism in the workplace is alarming.

“We have tried to intersect some of the data that we found particularly interesting. If there is something that you would like to know that we have missed, or is of special interest to you, please contact us and we will happily share that particular slice of information.

“We welcome everyone to join and to be part of inspiring women everywhere and helping us to grow the network wider, ultimately supporting diversity and equity in all aspects of lighting. We want everyone to join in because we only get better together.”

The full report can be found on the WIL website here.

www.womeninlighting.com