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Gender Budgeting as an instrument for managing scientific organisations to promote equal opportunities for women and men - with the example of universities

Final Report Summary - GB_MANAGEMENT (Gender Budgeting as an instrument for managing scientific organisations to promote equal opportunities for women and men - with the example of universities)

The transnational Specific Support Action (SSA) GB_MANAGEMENT focused on the question how gender budgeting can be applied as a powerful instrument for gender equality in the budgeting policy of an organisation. The intention was to show which dimensions and which phases of the budgeting process have to be considered for a successful gender budgeting. Furthermore, some basic steps for a systematic integration of gender issues into the budgeting process were developed.

For the analysis of the actual situation of women and men at the three universities we looked at the social situation as well as at laws, treaties and agreements which regulate the budget planning, plus the actual financing of the universities. Furthermore we analysed the management instruments, the instruments for the improvement of gender equality and the quality of data which is collected in respect to its usability for a sex-differentiated analysis. This project step allowed us a thorough understanding of the financing structures and the preconditions to establish gender equality in respect to budgeting.

The analysis of the budgeting process at the cooperating universities showed in detail how the process of budget planning and budget controlling works on an official level and which informal (power) relationships are important. Additionally we could see whether gender equality aspects have an influence on the budget planning process at all and up to which extent budget planning has an influence on gender equality measures. The analysis also highlighted the stakeholders of budgeting and the cooperation between them and the universities' gender equality representatives or commissioners.
The goal was to get an insight into the process itself and into the aspects (structural, legal, cultural or personal) that influence the budgeting process, which will serve as a basis for the development of process indicators and measures to include gender aspects into the budgeting process.

In August 2008 the results of the project are being published in an edited version and as a summary on the website of the Frauenakademie at http://www.frauenakademie.de online.
In September 2008 the results are presented and discussed at a public conference in Brussels.