Gender equality for science excellence
With the support of EU funding, the 'Increasing capacity for implementing gender action plans in science' (GenSET) project set out to determine and promote practical ways of bringing gender knowledge and mainstreaming expertise to Europe's science institutions. The initiative envisioned that in this way, and by addressing gender issues influencing the quality of the scientific system, science in general will benefit from the increased participation of women and integration of gender dimension in research process. GenSET focused on enabling dialogue between gender experts and science leaders, so as to form common ground on the practical ways in which gender action plans can be implemented in existing institutional mechanisms. As such, various support actions were carried out. These included a series of consensus seminars, the main output of which was a consensus report on the gender dimension in science produced by a panel of 14 science leaders. Titled 'Recommendations for action on the gender dimension in science', the report includes 13 specific, evidence-based recommendations for improvements in organisational structures and in knowledge production. Practical support actions provided by the GenSET consortium included three capacity-building workshops focusing on how gender equality issues are addressed in different organisations. The events provided a forum for disseminating the science leaders’ recommendations, dialogue, discussion, experience sharing, and exploring how institutional gender action plans can be developed. The workshop themes were science excellence, gender stereotypes, and recruitment and retention. Dissemination activities also provided support in the form of a valorisation workshop in Poland and another in Ireland. These introduced the consensus report and identified barriers to its implementation in both countries. In addition, the GenSET website (http://www.genderinscience.org) offers information for researchers and practitioners considering gender mainstreaming for enhanced quality in the scientific system. Transformation of the project's final conference into a 1st European Gender Summit (http://www.gender-summit.eu) represents the most significant undertaking, attracting widespread interest and participation from science, gender research and policy. GenSET has thus given Europe's science institutions invaluable assistance for implementing gender equality policy recommendations, something that promises to strengthen research excellence across Europe.
