Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RESET (Redesigning Equality and Scientific Excellence Together)
Période du rapport: 2021-01-01 au 2022-03-31
The question of gender equality and gender dimension in research and teaching in academia represents the focal point of the RESET project. Along with the concepts of diversity, inclusion and scientific excellence, it sets the foundation for policy making within European universities. The Horizon Europe framework programme encourages universities to embrace these issues in an institutionalised manner through Gender Equality Plans. Higher education institutions have to go through a process of cultural and institutional change in order to ensure the effective implementation of European objectives in the local institutional contexts. Being major employers in the public sector of their regions and having women as a majority of the administrative personnel, the partner universities of RESET are all concerned by the questions of gender and intersectional imbalance in recruitment, decision making and daily practices.
Despite the significant advancement observed in certain areas (work-life balance facilities, reduction of gender pay gap and parity of academic boards), the cultural, institutional and legal circumstances do not always set the conditions favourable to the structural progress. Moreover, teachers, researchers and staff are directly or indirectly involved in the transfer of knowledge to the young generations and production of scientific excellence, where gender bias and gender blindness may result in economic, cultural and social risks, but also a lack of innovation, untapped potential, missed opportunities and unmet challenges.
Among the objectives of RESET there are: promotion of women research careers at all levels and increase in their representation at the leadership positions; institutional mainstreaming and fostering of gender equality, diversity and inclusion via co-design of Gender Equality Plans; gender integration to the content of research and trainings; adaptation of the criteria of scientific excellence to the reality of academic and administrative careers and projects, and, finally, replication of RESET gender equality “mechanism” by other HEIs in order to sustain the establishment of European Research Area.
Despite the significant advancement observed in certain areas (work-life balance facilities, reduction of gender pay gap and parity of academic boards), the cultural, institutional and legal circumstances do not always set the conditions favourable to the structural progress. Moreover, teachers, researchers and staff are directly or indirectly involved in the transfer of knowledge to the young generations and production of scientific excellence, where gender bias and gender blindness may result in economic, cultural and social risks, but also a lack of innovation, untapped potential, missed opportunities and unmet challenges.
Among the objectives of RESET there are: promotion of women research careers at all levels and increase in their representation at the leadership positions; institutional mainstreaming and fostering of gender equality, diversity and inclusion via co-design of Gender Equality Plans; gender integration to the content of research and trainings; adaptation of the criteria of scientific excellence to the reality of academic and administrative careers and projects, and, finally, replication of RESET gender equality “mechanism” by other HEIs in order to sustain the establishment of European Research Area.
After passing almost one third of the project lifetime, RESET partner universities manifest their performance by the establishment and running of new gender-sensitive institutional structures (Gender Equality Boards), strategic linking and cooperation within institutional units, services and stakeholders and the production of scientific and “operational” outputs.
Above all, the first phase of the project has been marked by the intense participative collection of gender-disaggregated and intersectional data, analysis of the results and their subsequent dissemination. The comprehensive data collection pipeline includes direct and indirect harvesting of quantitative and qualitative data. Thanks to this approach, the project addressed all foreseen target groups (teachers, researchers, Master and PhD students, administrative staff, middle and top management of universities) and provided an opportunity of “contributing to change” to each member of the academic community.
While GEP-implementing partners followed the first steps of the GEAR tool methodology, the mentors and the evaluator were also able to re-assess their current practices and experiences. Moreover, internal and external (other EU funded and sister projects) benchmarking were crucial for the identification of efficient approaches necessary to tackle challenges singled out by RESET.
One of RESET's main results represents an analysis of four institutional local settings in terms of recruitment, leadership, decision-making, career progression and systems for tackling sexual harassment and work life balance. Another report summarises specific training needs of each partner university and provides the presentation of existing programmes, courses and workshops. The project developed a toolbox for gender-neutral, diversity-oriented institutional communication.
As RESET is set in seven different institutional settings, some specific efforts were undertaken by all partners to design tools (co-design toolkit, templates for data collection, guidelines and checklist for integration of gender into research, monitoring checklist for elaboration of Gender Equality Plans) that will be efficient for each partner and for external users. RESET also developed some project-specific operational plans that consider project’s communication and dissemination, data management and monitoring and evaluation strategies. Besides that, the project has a transversal dimension trying to acknowledge and mobilise students, administration, local research laboratories and support services, by reaching out to them with tailored support materials.
The notion of scientific excellence was approached by partners from different perspectives: going through theoretical discussions, literature review, interviews with relevant stakeholders, intersectional focus groups and capacity building sessions. The outcome of this first phase of brainstorming is the co-design of the joint statement of top management on their engagement for equality, diversity and excellence in research.
All project partners were actively involved in the promotion of RESET objectives and first results: notably, by reaching out and uniting with other sister projects and other EU-funded projects and highlighting the results of data collection and co-design approach for institutional communities.
Above all, the first phase of the project has been marked by the intense participative collection of gender-disaggregated and intersectional data, analysis of the results and their subsequent dissemination. The comprehensive data collection pipeline includes direct and indirect harvesting of quantitative and qualitative data. Thanks to this approach, the project addressed all foreseen target groups (teachers, researchers, Master and PhD students, administrative staff, middle and top management of universities) and provided an opportunity of “contributing to change” to each member of the academic community.
While GEP-implementing partners followed the first steps of the GEAR tool methodology, the mentors and the evaluator were also able to re-assess their current practices and experiences. Moreover, internal and external (other EU funded and sister projects) benchmarking were crucial for the identification of efficient approaches necessary to tackle challenges singled out by RESET.
One of RESET's main results represents an analysis of four institutional local settings in terms of recruitment, leadership, decision-making, career progression and systems for tackling sexual harassment and work life balance. Another report summarises specific training needs of each partner university and provides the presentation of existing programmes, courses and workshops. The project developed a toolbox for gender-neutral, diversity-oriented institutional communication.
As RESET is set in seven different institutional settings, some specific efforts were undertaken by all partners to design tools (co-design toolkit, templates for data collection, guidelines and checklist for integration of gender into research, monitoring checklist for elaboration of Gender Equality Plans) that will be efficient for each partner and for external users. RESET also developed some project-specific operational plans that consider project’s communication and dissemination, data management and monitoring and evaluation strategies. Besides that, the project has a transversal dimension trying to acknowledge and mobilise students, administration, local research laboratories and support services, by reaching out to them with tailored support materials.
The notion of scientific excellence was approached by partners from different perspectives: going through theoretical discussions, literature review, interviews with relevant stakeholders, intersectional focus groups and capacity building sessions. The outcome of this first phase of brainstorming is the co-design of the joint statement of top management on their engagement for equality, diversity and excellence in research.
All project partners were actively involved in the promotion of RESET objectives and first results: notably, by reaching out and uniting with other sister projects and other EU-funded projects and highlighting the results of data collection and co-design approach for institutional communities.
RESET partners adopted the co-design approach in implementation of most of the project activities. This strategy allowed project outputs to be more scalable to the specific context of each institution, but also increased cooperation, innovation and mutual understanding of diversity of challenges and opportunities.
As training and capacity building are the main tools in the production of institutional change, one of the major challenges for the project is an elaboration of both tailor-made and comprehensive training tools that will be adapted and then integrated to each institutional environment.
After the main collection of data is accomplished, the RESET partners now concentrate on the policy refining and coherent GEP implementation. Careful valuing and analysis of risks accomplished during the phase of GEP design will support this mission along with the continuous monitoring and assistance assured by local GEBs and stakeholders, and mentor partners. The assessment of the GEPs by the evaluator, and deploying monitoring and evaluation instruments designed over this period will support this process. In addition to existing publications, partners have already identified and will continue to work on scientific visibility of results, along with joint research publication and comparative analyses.
By finding synergies within different tasks and efficient public communication, the project aims to achieve its targeted audience by the end of its lifespan. By reaching out to various stakeholders of university life, combining subjects (gender equality, diversity, necessity for gender integration in research and teaching content, work life balance) and approaches (training, presentations, availability of platform and toolboxes), we strive for maximisation of our impact and contribution to the wider dissemination of sustainable development as a notion that relies on the gender equality pillar and intersectional perspective.
As training and capacity building are the main tools in the production of institutional change, one of the major challenges for the project is an elaboration of both tailor-made and comprehensive training tools that will be adapted and then integrated to each institutional environment.
After the main collection of data is accomplished, the RESET partners now concentrate on the policy refining and coherent GEP implementation. Careful valuing and analysis of risks accomplished during the phase of GEP design will support this mission along with the continuous monitoring and assistance assured by local GEBs and stakeholders, and mentor partners. The assessment of the GEPs by the evaluator, and deploying monitoring and evaluation instruments designed over this period will support this process. In addition to existing publications, partners have already identified and will continue to work on scientific visibility of results, along with joint research publication and comparative analyses.
By finding synergies within different tasks and efficient public communication, the project aims to achieve its targeted audience by the end of its lifespan. By reaching out to various stakeholders of university life, combining subjects (gender equality, diversity, necessity for gender integration in research and teaching content, work life balance) and approaches (training, presentations, availability of platform and toolboxes), we strive for maximisation of our impact and contribution to the wider dissemination of sustainable development as a notion that relies on the gender equality pillar and intersectional perspective.