CEC European Managers brings #BeyondBias to Europe’s space and defence sectors
“Bias affects decision-making most when we rely on habits, on our gut feeling, and especially if we do it very fast,” said today CEC European Managers’ Director Olga Molina at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels.
The context was that of the debate on diversity in Europe’s space and defence sectors, which is increasingly moving beyond representation alone. Recruitment, retention, leadership culture, skills shortages, and workplace organisation are now part of the same conversation — and managers are at the center of it.
This year’s DIVERIS Annual Meeting, organised by the European Commission’s DG DEFIS in Brussels, gathered representatives from EU institutions, industry, space agencies, defence organisations and social partners to discuss how Europe can build a more inclusive and sustainable workforce in strategic sectors.
The figures discussed throughout the event remain striking: women still represent only around 20% of the aerospace workforce in Europe.
Participants repeatedly stressed that the issue can no longer be approached only through awareness campaigns or communication exercises. The challenge concerns the entire talent pipeline — from schools and universities to recruitment systems, management culture, and career progression.
The discussions also reflected broader labour market concerns familiar to managers across Europe: aging populations, shortages in cybersecurity and digital profiles, difficulties retaining highly skilled workers, continuous upskilling needs, and increasing competition for talent between sectors.
#BeyondBias: The voice of managers
The campaign #BeyondBias, designed and disseminated by CEC European Managers, was part of the event’s agenda due to the evidence it provided among European organisations.
Roberta Paoletti from Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini, explained how her organisation designed and delivered the Beyond Unconscious Bias trianing program. She also focused her intervention on the structural nature of unconscious bias and the way it influences everyday organisational decision-making.
She argued that bias rarely appears through openly discriminatory behaviour. Instead, it is often reproduced through routine decisions that seem neutral on the surface but are shaped by implicit assumptions about competence, leadership or “fit” within organisations.
“When we do not have complete information, as is often the case in real-world decision making, we rely on mental shortcuts to make sense of what we see. For example, when evaluating a candidate for a leadership role, we may unconsciously associate leadership with masculinity.”
Roberta Paoletti
Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini
She also warned about the growing role of algorithmic systems and Artificial Intelligence in reproducing existing inequalities inside organisations.
“These systems are often presented as objective, neutral, and fair,” she noted. “But in reality, they are built on existing data and practices, which are themselves already influenced by bias.”
For CEC European Managers, these discussions directly concern the role of management in shaping working environments and organisational culture, and are directly linked to the organisation’s new initiative AI Manage.
Representing CEC European Managers, Director Olga Molina joined the panel on unconscious bias and inclusive leadership together with experts from business consulting, research and diversity training organisations. The question debated was how bias influences management decisions and how leadership structures can either reinforce or reduce inequalities inside organisations.
Molina presented the work developed through the European project Beyond Unconscious Bias (BEYUNBI), led by CEC European Managers, and the organisation’s #BeyondBias campaign.
The Beyond Unconscious Bias project surveyed managers across Europe and examined how unconscious bias appears in recruitment, promotion, evaluation, and daily management practices.
Together with the University of Southern Denmark and European partners, the project translated the findings into practical workshops and management tools aimed at improving workplace decision-making.
“Managers make thousands of decisions every day, and our brains naturally use shortcuts to process information quickly.”
Olga Molina
CEC European Managers Director
The intervention strongly resonated with many of the wider debates taking place during the event. Several speakers highlighted how organisational cultures in technical sectors continue to favour traditional leadership models and established networks, often reproducing inequalities unconsciously.
Molina insisted that unconscious bias should not be treated as an issue of individual blame.
“If you have a brain, you have bias,” she said. “The problem starts when these shortcuts influence decisions about people without really reflecting on them or challenging them.”
This managerial dimension is precisely why CEC European Managers considers leadership essential in debates around equality, inclusion and diversity.
Managers are responsible for hiring, evaluating performance, allocating opportunities, building teams and shaping workplace culture on a daily basis. Their decisions directly influence who progresses, who leaves organisations and whose expertise is recognised.
The #BeyondBias campaigndeveloped by CEC European Managers therefore focuses on practical management action rather than symbolic commitments.
The campaign proposes concrete measures to help organisations reduce bias in leadership and HR processes, including standardised recruitment procedures, structured promotion criteria, diverse interview panels and inclusive leadership practices.
During the panel, Molina shared examples of small managerial changes that can improve team dynamics and decision-making.
One example came from behavioral psychology: leaders speaking last during meetings instead of first.
“If the leader speaks first, others tend to align with the leader, speaking last allows more perspectives, more diverse opinions and better discussions.”
She also underlined the importance of trusting teams’ expertise and creating environments where employees feel safe to disagree, contribute ideas, and challenge assumptions.
Another recurring point throughout the event concerned the importance of visibility and representation. Speakers also stressed that younger generations increasingly look for organisations whose values they identify with and where they can see themselves represented.
Representatives from the European Space Agency, including Ewelina Suchocka, stressed that recruitment efforts increasingly need to start much earlier in the talent pipeline, through outreach activities targeting schools, universities and young graduates, especially to encourage more women and underrepresented groups to pursue scientific and engineering careers. Suchocka also highlighted the importance of maintaining flexible work arrangements after the pandemic, explaining that these measures have had a clear impact on both the attraction and retention of female talent within ESA.
Yannick Thiry from ASD Eurospace argued that Europe’s space sector still struggles with the way it communicates about itself, often focusing on “conquest” and highly technical narratives while failing to present a broader diversity of career paths and profiles. He also raised concerns about the lack of socio-economic diversity in engineering and technical education.
From the defence sector perspective, Emmanuel Jacob, representing military personnel organisations through EUROMIL, warned that fragmented approaches to recruitment and retention are no longer sustainable.
He stressed that both the military and industry are competing for the same highly specialised profiles, particularly in cybersecurity and digital skills, and called for stronger cooperation between education systems, public institutions, industry and defence organisations.
ESA representatives echoed this concern, underlining the importance of collaboration between academia, institutions and industry to avoid competing for the same limited talent pools.
The management and leadership perspective remained central throughout these exchanges.
Flexible work arrangements, work-life balance, hybrid teams, continuous reskilling and generational shifts are transforming expectations around leadership. Inclusive management is increasingly linked not only to fairness, but also to organisational performance, innovation and resilience.
