Photo via the University of Victoria.
“30 by 30” is a nationwide initiative started by Engineers Canada to increase the number of women graduates in engineering to 30 per cent by 2030. The UVic Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) has endorsed this goal, and UVic as an institution has made endowments toward the goal as early as 2019.
The goal started as a response to the low percentage of newly licensed engineers in Canada who are women, which was only 17.1 per cent in 2014, when 30 by 30 was launched as a national goal. As of 2024, according to Engineers Canada, 21 per cent of newly licensed engineers in Canada are female-identifying.
According to Engineers Canada, the average percentage of newly licensed women engineers in British Columbia is 21.2 per cent as of 2023. In 2022, UVic reported that approximately 19 per cent of ECS enrolments self-identified as women. Now, that number has jumped to 24 per cent, according to Caela Moffet, the ECS faculty’s marketing specialist.
Jessica Vandenberghe, ECS’ associate dean, community and culture, said there is expected to be some who enrol, but do not continue with ECS. Still, this year marks a 5 per cent increase in enrolment of self-identified women since 2019.
The faculty was unable to share with the Martlet what percentage of students who graduate from the faculty are self-identified women.
According to the University of British Columbia (UBC), enrolment of women in engineering (at the Vancouver campus) was 29 per cent in 2022. The University of Toronto reported that 37.3 per cent of students in the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering across all undergraduate programs identified as a woman as of 2025, and the University of Waterloo reports a 33.8 per cent enrolment of women in engineering as of 2025, with 31.8 per cent of graduates that year identifying as women.
At Simon Fraser University, women made up 20 per cent of undergraduate students in 2024-25 and 17 per cent of students enrolled in undergraduate degrees in the Faculty of Applied Sciences. In the same faculty, women made up 28 per cent of graduate students, 30 per cent of master’s degrees, and 22 per cent of PhDs.
“We believe that diversity in engineering equals strength in engineering, and there is a place for everyone in our faculty,” Moffet said in a statement.
While working toward 30 by 30, the faculty has introduced many scholarships and bursaries to help support women in engineering and computer science, such as the Cora Arenas and Carol Artemiw second year retention award, which gives up to 40 students entering their second year $10 000 each, with first preference for women-identifying students, and a second preference for 2SLGBTQQI students, as well as the Women Continuing in Engineering and Computer Science award, and the 30 by 30 award.
Although the faculty does make efforts to support university-aged women to encourage enrolment, they aim to appeal to younger girls as well.
“We know that a big part of getting to the 30X30 goal is getting people into STEM at a young age, so we do a lot of K-12 outreach via Science Venture.… They do programs like GoENG Girl, Code Girl, STEMgirls, and more. We also do outreach to many local high schools,” Moffet said.
Vandenberghe said the biggest challenge in working toward 30 by 30 is countering internalized bias and stereotypes. She also said that discrimination can be hard to prove and document, and that doing so can be a difficult process, as people must recount and relive their bad experiences.
“Really, one of the biggest challenges right now is trying to counter our unconscious bias [and] challenges associated with identifying some of these barriers and then convincing people that it is an actual barrier and it’s not something that is made up or just affecting one person,” Vandenberghe said.
Vandenberghe told the Martlet she encourages any student, but especially women, to utilize UVic’s wellness supports, as well as clubs and community groups such as Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology (WEST), and Women in Engineering and Computer Science (WECS).
Although the faculty has endorsed 30 by 30, which specifically aims to increase enrolment for women, it also has equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives for other underrepresented groups, including a Truth and Reconciliation framework, an anti-racism framework, and a framework for students with disabilities, according to Vandenberghe.
“I want to make clear that we don’t see that goal as an endpoint, just a milestone to even greater representation in [the] future. I don’t have a crystal ball but I believe that we’ll hit 30 per cent by 2030, and we are pushing for it across the faculty,” Moffet said.
