Dr Juliet Webster is the coordinator of the EU FP7 project ‘GenPORT: an internet portal for sharing knowledge and inspiring collaborative action’(www.genderportal.eu).This project collects, organises and offers online the world’s best research resources, statistics, good practices, and toolkits for gender equality in science, technology and innovation. She is also the leader of an EU Committee on Science and Technology (COST) Action Working Group on Virtual Work – Creativity, Skills, Knowledge and New Occupational Identities (thedynamicsofvirtualwork.com).

Juliet is a social scientist with a research background in the gender equality issues involved in the development and use of information and communication technologies, particularly in the workplace. Her research addresses European Union measures to advance women in science and technology, including in these professions. Her past work has examined gender equality policy issues in the development of the knowledge society, the implementation of equality strategies by employers, and workplace measures to achieve pay. She is currently working on the gender dimensions of ‘virtual work’ (a key element of which is digital labour). This includes consideration of who we might include in the category/categories of virtual workers and how the diverse manifestations of virtual work are shaped by and affect gender relations.

She held positions at the universities of Edinburgh, East London, Vienna, and at Trinity College in Dublin. I have worked as a gender expert in the European Commission DG Employment in Brussels, and as a Director of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) in the UK. She regularly provides research and consulting advice to the European Commission and European Parliament.

Her books include: Shaping Women’s Work: Gender, Employment and Information Technology (Longman, 1997), The Information Society in Europe: Work and Life in an Age of Globalisation (with Ken Ducatel and Werner Herrmann, Rowman and Littlefield 2000), Office Automation: the Labour Process and Women’s Work in Britain (Harvester Wheatsheaf 1990).