Understanding puzzles in the gendered European map brain drain in physics through the cultural looking glass

Objective

Over the next decades the general decrease in populations will affect all sectors of highe r education and research in Europe. Natural sciences are encountering increasing problems with recruitment, especially of female physicists students. It is a matter of utmost concern that well-qualified female scientists seldom reach top-level positions to the same extent as their male counterparts and often leave the research system prematurely. This is a fact that has been well established in a number of studies, no tably the SHE-figures, the Helsinki Group Reports, and the ETAN- and ENWISE Reports. The overall picture is a dismal one; yet an interesting configuration of cultural diversity appears on a gendered map of physicists. It is comparatively easier to attract female students in eastern and southern European countries than in the north, and career paths seem to follow different patterns. The primary objective of the UPGEM project is to identify relevant local cultural-historical processes behind "brain-drains" of female physicists, who are leaving the field despite having the same formal qualifications as their male colleagues. This implies identifying the informal ways in which careers are shaped in various cultural contexts, and their relationship to "the four P's" (prestige, payment, pleasure, policy). Through close-up (qualitative) studies of the working environment of female academic staff in physics institutes at six universities distributed along the north/south and the east/west axes of the European map, the project will provide a complement to the statistical surveys and recommend more effective policies countering brain-drain. This is not just a question of gender equality. The saving effect of keeping just 10% of potential female physicist brain-drainer s throughout Europe would amount to many millions of euros. The project is a pilot study, and it's the aspiration to follow up the research in the form of an IP in FP7.'

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

• natural sciences
• social sciences sociology gender studies gender equality
• engineering and technology materials engineering

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

• competence/excellence
• cultural diversity
• gender difference
• tacit norms

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP6-SOCIETY - Science and society: specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration : "Structuring the European Research Area" under the Sixth Framework Programme 2002-2006

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• SOCIETY-3.3 - Women and science
• SOCIETY-WP2004-3.3.3 - Gender research

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP6-2004-SCIENCE-AND-SOCIETY-10
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

STREP - Specific Targeted Research Project

Coordinator

Participants (5)