Our mission statement includes:

• Promote connections between women working in all fields related to vision.
• Foster and increase collaborations, encourage mentoring and work to raise the profile of women working in vision across the UK.
• Ensure gender equality across vision sciences through a network of support and encouragement while tackling the issue head on.

We have a number of strategic focus areas in order to achieve these goals, these include: diversity, leadership, education, research and training.

We want to promote all forms of diversity, inclusivity, and support. Our diversity lead is Ms Evelyn Mensah, who is currently a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Central Middlesex Hospital.

Find out more about WVUK and Diversity

Provide mentorship, advice and skills to navigate senior management, which may be male dominated, and create senior-level opportunities

Find out more about WVUK and Leadership

We want to provide education to our members on varied topics, including via:

• Workshops and mentorship schemes
• Outreach to schools to ensure women are encouraged to enter STEM professions
• Connections and networking opportunities

Find out more about WVUK and Education

WVUK aims to:

• provide networking opportunities for collaborations, and research grants (see Connect)
• allow members to disseminate research to other interested women

Our research co-leads are Dr Eleni Beli and Dr Lola Solebo. Our early-career researcher lead is Bethany Higgins.

Find out more about WVUK and Research

WVUK aims to provide opportunities to upskill:

• interview skills,
• how to write a grant
• vocal coaching
• networking

We're keen to keep expanding our training offering - if there's something in particular that you'd like to see or be trained in, please do get in touch.

Find out more about WVUK and Training

A key goal is to ensure that WVUK is well known. That way we can make sure that women entering into careers in ophthalmology and related fields can feel supported early in their careers; it is also important that men and other genders are aware of us too. It also means we can encourage more members to join, and be the go-to organization for queries, concerns, issues for women who encounter any level of gender discrimination in their field.

Our communications team disseminates our activities and keeps us abreast of opportunities to enhance our reach, promote our members to increase their and our profile.

This is a new focus area that we have added for 2024, with many exciting initiatives to come!