The UWE Bristol x Hitachi Female Talent\u00a0Initiative\u00a0in Transport, Logistics and Technology event brought together over 30 students and five external speakers to explore careers, challenge\u00a0assumptions\u00a0and share honest conversations about the sector. With speakers from industry and academia, the event focused on\u00a0career\u00a0pathways,\u00a0and why diversity of people and perspectives matters more than ever.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To open the session, Anna Maudet, Head of Bid Management at Hitachi ZeroCarbon, posed the question\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What first comes to mind when you hear \u201ctransport and logistics\u201d?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2026and as responses were gathered through a live word cloud, many were quick to point out visual and operational associations such as \u2018trucks\u2019, \u2018trains\u2019, \u2018freight\u2019, \u2018lorries\u2019, \u2018hard hats\u2019 and \u2018clipboards\u2019. Other responses focused more on representation, with several participants simply answering \u2018men\u2019. Taken together, these responses suggest that the sector is commonly perceived as heavy, operational, and male dominated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Squiggly Careers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Following some initial icebreakers, Sarah Behenna<\/a> (UWE Bristol) chaired the next session, which began with industry speakers Maria Perrotti (Hitachi), Isabella Panovic (Innovate UK) and Amber Gunter (Steer), alongside two UWE Bristol academics, Daniela Paddeu<\/a> and Glenn Lyons<\/a>, sharing and discussing as a panel their routes into the transport and logistics sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What stood out most was the shared theme of \u201csquiggly careers\u201d<\/em>, with no speaker describing a neat or linear journey into transport or logistics. Instead, the discussion highlighted how a career spent moving between sectors and interests can be a positive rather than a negative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr Daniela Paddeu, Associate Professor of Sustainable Freight Futures at UWE Bristol, discussed how her initial interest in transport and logistics was driven by the innovative technologies which drive cost reduction of system efficiencies, but has since come to be far more interested by the humans behind these systems: the drivers, the planners, the local SMEs who are integral to the supply chain, each with their own experiences and needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversations around state\u2011of\u2011the\u2011art innovation also featured strongly, with Isabella from Innovate UK outlining the Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) programme, and Anna from Hitachi ZeroCarbon describing their role as the principal partner of GRIDSERVE, which aims to deliver one of the most advanced eHGV charging networks in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside excellent technical questions around charging speed and infrastructure, students asked equally important questions about societal challenges: how do drivers feel about this transition, and how does this technology change day\u2011to\u2011day working lives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Representation Shapes Outcomes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the panel and Q&A session, the room was split up into roundtable discussions facilitated by the expert speakers, which focused on where perceptions of the transport and logistics sector come from which including responses about media portrayal, lack of visible role models, gendered job descriptions and workplace cultures that don\u2019t always feel welcoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professor Glenn Lyons also noted how colleagues at UWE Bristol\u2019s Centre for Transport & Society refuse to take part in \u201cmanels\u201d, i.e. event panels with an all-male line-up, and instead used these instances as opportunities to engage with those making these decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hitachi also shared practical examples of how exposure can change perceptions, including their student discovery weeks and summer placements that allow participants to spend time across different parts of the organisation and see the full breadth of roles available. By the end of the event, it was great to hear that perceptions had notably shifted. When asked how likely they were to pursue a career in transport and logistics, the overwhelming majority of students selected likely or very likely!<\/p>\n\n\n\n This event was organised in partnership between Anna Maudet (Hitachi ZeroCarbon) and colleagues at UWE Bristol (Daniela Paddeu, Sarah Behenna, Amina Hamoud, and Robert Hicks), with the support of School of Architecture and Environment and School of Engineering Athena Swan self-assessment teams (AS SAT), who sponsored the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further opportunities:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more about UWE Bristol\u2019s Women Like Me mentoring scheme<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more about Hitachi ZeroCarbon\u2019s \u2018Electric Freightway\u2019 project<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UWE Bristol x Hitachi Female Talent\u00a0Initiative\u00a0in Transport, Logistics and Technology event brought together over 30 students and five external speakers to explore careers, challenge\u00a0assumptions\u00a0and share honest conversations about the sector. With speakers from industry and academia, the event focused on\u00a0career\u00a0pathways,\u00a0and why diversity of people and perspectives matters more than ever.\u00a0 To open the session, … Continue reading “Squiggly career paths and reflections from the UWE Bristol x Hitachi Female Talent Initiative event”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":8688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,2,1447,1446,1548,1403,1519,1489,748,1335,108,4],"tags":[11,17,56,62,75,226],"class_list":["post-8682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-law","category-business-partnerships","category-digital","category-innovation","category-partnerships","category-projects","category-research-and-external-engagement","category-rise","category-skills","category-sustainability","category-technology","category-uwe-bristol-research","tag-bristol","tag-business","tag-partnerships","tag-research","tag-uwe-bristol","tag-uwe-bristol-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8682"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8694,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8682\/revisions\/8694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/research-external-engagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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