Final Report Summary - EGERA (Effective Gender Equality in Research and the Academia)
Executive Summary:
Initiated in January 2014, EGERA brought together 8 research and higher education institutions across the EU and Turkey, bound by a same commitment to the dual objective of achieving gender equality in research and the academia (1), and strengthening the gender dimension in research (2) by introducing sustainable and measurable changes in the organization of our research institutions. The project aimed at fostering structural transformation, thanks to three key enabling factors: a) the strong commitment of their respective management structures and leaders; b) the involvement of all categories of stakeholders, including researchers, teaching and administrative staff, students, social partners and relevant policy agents, and c), the implementation of transformative Gender Equality Plans (GEPs).
These plans address four key areas of action, drawing upon a diagnosis of gender bias and inequalities conducted by each implementing partner. GEPs articulate a structural understanding of gender inequalities and bias in research with a fully-fledged set of measures and actions, tailor-made to the needs and organizational contexts of each institution. These actions cover the most salient issues with respect to the recruitment, retention, appraisal and empowerment of women in research. They are structured into 2 broad thematic streams (Building Gender Friendly work environment & Mainstreaming Gender in Research and curricula), and 2 supporting streams (Enhancing the monitoring of gender inequalities in research & Training academic communities). Officially endorsed and made publicly available at each partner institution, these GEPs have been implemented over the four years of the project, either as the main gender and diversity policy document, or as a supporting document to pre-existing strategies. Consecutively, these GEPs and their respective evaluations, have served as a basis for a next generation of Gender Equality Plans, to be implemented after the project’s closure (2018).
As it was the ultimate objective of EGERA, to develop a shared culture of gender equality, a core importance was given to gender training activities, as a supporting tool for the effective implementation of targeted measures and their embedment into institutions and practices. With view to ensure the sustainability of actions, their transferability to other contexts and their continuous assessment and enhancement, EGERA had been thought as Community of Practice (CoP) for experience exchange and self-reflexivity. This CoP is being developed through a variety of channels, including the full implication of respective partners in 6 out of 8 WPs, regular face-to-face workshops and on-line communication, as well as at different levels: each partner actively engaged with key stakeholders of gender equality policies in the academia at the sub-national, national and EU levels, thus contributing to an emerging, EU-wide community.
But most important, changes were brought to our respective institutions:
- Enforcement of protocols to fight sexual harassment
- Reinforcement of gender equality mechanisms
- Development or expansion of full gender, pluridisciplinary course offers
- Development of fully fledged gender training and awareness-raising plans
- Adoption of a gender sensitive communication
- Complex resolution mechanisms for increasing women’s access to senior positions
- Innovative career support measures
In addition, instruments have also been developped at the level of our partnership, such as a Structural change toolkit, two charters devoted respectively to gender-senstive communication and governance, and good practices databases, with view to enrich the cumulative effort carried out at the EU level to achieve gender equality in research and the academia. These relevant documents and instruments, will be communicated to DG Research, so as to be potentially integrated into the GEAR web-based tool developped jointly with EIGE.
Project Context and Objectives:
From January 2014 to December 2018, EGERA has brought together 8 research and higher education institutions across the EU and Turkey, bound by a same commitment to the dual objective of achieving gender equality in research and the academia (1), and strengthening the gender dimension in research (2). The Project aimed at fostering structural change through the implementation of transformative Gender Equality Plans (GEPs). Operationalized over the duration of the project, GEPs articulate a structural understanding of gender inequalities and bias in research with a fully-fledged set of measures and actions. These actions do cover the most salient issues with respect to the recruitment, retention, appraisal and empowerment of women in research, and to the mainstreaming of gender knowledge across disciplinary fields – notably in Science, Technology, Economics and Mathematics (STEM): Enhancing gender (in)equality monitoring instruments; Building Gender-friendly work environments; Mainstreaming Gender in Research content and curricula; Training Academic communities.
Our project intended to be cumulative, drawing upon major milestones brought to the resolution of these challenges by other EU-funded projects and policy initiatives undertaken at the level of EU institutions, member states and elsewhere. It also intended to take the window of opportunity for addressing research institutions’ organizational structures and routines, ways of doing things and excellence assessment criteria, opened under the 7th Framework Programme by the European Commission (EC), and pursued under H2020. As it has been increasingly pointed out by EU reports, structures, rather than individuals and their capacities, are at stake to explain the uneven distribution of power within research organization, the low proportion of women in certain research areas or their disappearance as they move up the career ladders. This perspective has been thoroughly articulated in the notion of structural change advocated at the EU level, which underlines the key importance of stakeholders’ involvement and top leadership support, as well as the necessity of a comprehensive diagnosis of gender inequalities and institutional resistances at play to support structural change.
Simultaneously, EGERA anticipated new developments in the EU research & innovation policy by implementing socially innovative solution and building the business case of gender in research as part of a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). To achieve tangible results, EGERA thus developed an approach which was both ambitious and pragmatic.
Firstly, participating institutions engaged with structural changes in a way that not only entailed addressing and improving women’s working conditions in research, but also challenging governance models and deeply entrenched institutional practices. Drawing upon a structural framing of gender inequality in research and the academia, they intended to bring about changes in different realms, as pieces of a same gender equality culture which are mutually constitutive and consolidate each other. This not only necessitated to secure top management support, but also to mobilize the whole academic & research communities, including faculty, post-graduate & PhD students, and supporting or administrative staffs. It has been our argument that this effective structural changes could only be reached by increasing awareness and knowledge on gender-related issues through the use of gender training.
Secondly, to carry out ambitious actions articulated in GEPs, EGERA has primarily drawn upon approaches and instruments that have been discussed, experimented and evaluated under previous/on-going FP7 projects, complemented over the course of the project, by those developped under H2020 projects. In its extensive use of gender training, EGERA also privileged participatory and experiential methodologies used in the Gender in EU research toolkit financed by the EC, or the group model building experimented under STAGES.
As further result from this ambitious but pragmatic approach, the EGERA community has paid a great deal of attention to making commitments taken at the level of each institution towards gender equality and a gender perspective in research, as public and visible as possible. This, with view to enhance accountability and gain support. As part of this strategy, GEPs have been made quickly available to our respective communities via institutional websites and other channels, and this has also been the case for the two charters adopted under EGERA.
It is by drawing upon this comprehensive and transformative approach, that EGERA intended to introduce three main innovations:
1) It was the ultimate objective of EGERA, to develop, within each partner institution, a shared culture of gender equality as a matter of Responsible Research and Innovation and a mark of research excellence. This is why EGERA did not focus on a narrow set of core issues, but embraced the issues of gender inequalities in research and the inclusion of a gender perspective in research in their complex, multi-layered dimensions. Related issues such as recruitment, appraisal and proficiency assessment procedures; conditions inhibiting women’s career development and well-being at work; or the mainstreaming of gender knowledge across disciplines and curricula, have thus been tackled at once.
2) This goal was to be attained through the implementation of fully-fledged Gender Equality Plans structured into 2 broad thematic streams (Building Gender Friendly work environment & Mainstreaming Gender in Research and curricula), and 2 supporting streams (Enhancing the monitoring of gender inequalities in research & Training academic communities). Along with the core relevance given to gender training activities, continuous efforts undertaken to fully embed actions carried out in these realms into the daily functioning of our organizations, has been the trade mark of EGERA.
3) In order to guarantee the sustainability of planned actions, their transferability to other contexts and their continuous assessment and enhancement, EGERA was also established as a Community of Practice (CoP) that will be maintained beyond the time line of the project. A forum for experience exchange and self-reflexivity, experimentation and social innovation, this CoP has been structured around a series of internal, face-to-face workshops and a collaborative on-line support named SARAH-AGORA (Achieving Gender equality in the Organization of Research and the Academia). It has also constantly been enriched by cross-participation in joint dissemination events with stakeholders and experts from other EU-funded initiatives, thus simultaneously integrating an EU-wide community in the making.
The objectives of EGERA for each of its reporting periods, were the following :
From January 2014 (Project Start) to July 2015 (end of the first reporting period), EGERA was not only meant to provide the grounds for resolute action in favour of gender equality since already at the stage of proposal, basic diagnoses of gender bias and inequalities at play had been collected to highlight major issues and challenges, and strong evidence of top-leadership commitment had been secured. Therefore, the first eighteen months of the project were expected to bring about key enabling conditions for change, innovative instruments and tangible results in respective implementing organizations :
✓ Providing partners with key additional resources to identify, measure and follow up gender bias, gender inequalities as well as relevant organizational and cultural hindrances to achieving greater equality and introducing a gender perspective in research.
✓ Providing the EGERA community with in-depth, solution-oriented analyses so as to support effective measures to tackle gender bias and building a shared gender equality culture
✓ Institutionalizing transformative knowledge-transfer schemes, in the form of comprehensive gender training plans, complemented by concepts, business cases and guidelines for action
✓ Establishing efficient communication resources, both as supporting tools for the Community of Practices (CoP), and external communication and dissemination channels.
These objectives were to be materialized into 8 project’s milestones. Not every milestone did correspond to a deliverable (in the form of standards or reports), as MS1 and MS3 consisted in the full institutional endorsement of GEPs and Gender Training Plans, respectively, while MS6 referred to the first cross-structural change projects conference to be held under EGERA.
From July 2015 to December, 2016 (end of the second reporting period), the project was expected to bring about tangible changes and achievements as far as implementing structural changes for gender equality and bringing a gender perspective in research were concerned, through achieving the following objectives:
✓ Supporting the linkage between the strategic mission statements of each implementing partner, and the objective of achieving gender equality
✓ Broadening the scope of awareness-raising and training activities of the project to all components of the academic community
✓ Addressing institutional resistances and ensuring sustainable top management support to the project’s objective
✓ Disseminating projects’ achievements towards academic and non-academic audiences (students, policy stakeholders, the media...) through intensive, multi-level communication and dissemination activities, with emphasis on STEMs, cross-EU-funded projects activities
✓ Providing actors of the ERA and beyond with valid instruments for implementing gender equality policies in research performing organizations
These objectives were notably reflected in four project’s milestones. Again, not every milestone did correspond to a (single) deliverable (in the form of reports), as MS8 consisted in a co-event on Gender in STEM convened by partner 7 (UVGZ) on M21, and MS9 and MS11 consisted each in a bounce of deliverables. For MS9, it was the release of the Antwerp Charter on Gender sensitive communication on M24 (corresponding to D.3.4) officially endorsed by all implementing partners by early 2016, and of the Charter on Gender Sensitive Governance in Research and Higher Education, endorsed and published by all implementing partner by the end of 2016. For MS11, it consisted in three reports submitted by M36: the 3rd Gender Equality Report (D.2.5) the 2nd Report on Dissemination activities (D.7.6) and the 2nd Evaluation and Monitoring report (D.8.3). Altogether, these reports were meant to provide an intermediate assessment of structural changes brought by EGERA after three years of project implementation. Finally, MS10 consisted in a Structural change toolkit, of which a technical description was delivered on M24 (D.7.5). This toolkit has been continuously enriched since, and regularly updated versions were made available on EGERA website, best practices being also disseminated through other toolkits and public databases, such as the GEAR repository.
Finally, between January, 2017 and December 2017 (end of the third reporting period), EGERA was ascribed the following objectives:
✓ Institutionalizing structural change in favour of gender equality and bringing a gender perspective in research, through embedding adopted documents and measures into the institutional framework of each institution
✓ Ensuring the sustainability of project’s results through the planning of the next generation of GEPs and/or Gender equality strategies to be adopted in each implementing institution
✓ Disseminating projects’ achievements towards academic and non-academic audiences (students, policy stakeholders...) through intensive, multi-level communication and dissemination activities, with emphasis on STEMs and cross-EU-funded projects activities
Although this last reporting period only included the ultimate milestone of the project (MS12, Final dissemination conference), it has been key to ensure that lessons have been learnt so as to inform further actions, for instance in the form of new generations of Gender Equality Plans, and that the firm commitment of participating institutions to the objectives underpinning the project, will be maintained beyond its completion.
Project Results:
I. Description of main results per reporting period
I.1 Description of the work performed over the first reporting period (January 2014-June 2015)
EGERA has been a fully collaborative project: with exception of WP1 (Management) and WP8 (monitoring and evaluation) respectively entrusted to the coordinator and an external evaluator, other 6 WPs have been carried out by all implementing partners, under the leadership of one of them. Hence, as for other reporting periods of the project, the work carried out over the first eighteen months of EGERA, resulted from the efforts undertaken by all implementing organizations.
In March, 2014, EGERA was officially launched at Sciences Po Paris, in presence of over 120 attendees, including senior researchers and administrative staffs from partner organizations, members of the advisory committee, external academics, students, policy makers and the media. Two ministers in office – the French Ministers of Research and Higher Education, and Women’s Rights, inaugurated the project through exclusive video messages in which they both brought full support to the objectives and concept of EGERA. Two articles were released in major French daily newspapers (Libération, Le Figaro) to report about the project, and a national broadcast program also extensively referred to EGERA. Over the following months, 15 other meetings and projects’ events have been held successfully and according to the planned schedule in 5 countries and all EGERA core teams actively engaged in communication and dissemination activities towards the academia, policy-makers and the larger public, including the private sector. This effort was effectively supported by a sounded communication plan adopted at the start of the project, a dedicated website launched on M6 (www.egera.eu) and a Facebook account. Over this first period, 41 out of 45 planned tasks have been initiated over this reporting period, enabling EGERA to reach its full speed.
At the level of the consortium, the work carried out in the respective WPs was supported by regular face-to-face meetings, on-going monitoring and evaluation and on-line communication through SARAH-AGORA, a project management tool developed by the coordinator and complemented by ad-hoc on-line forums. The work undertaken under EGERA was structured at two levels:
a) Through 8 WPs, 45 tasks, 39 deliverables, 16 milestones and 36 events
b) Through 7 GEPs complemented by 7 Gender Training Plans (one per partner institution involved in structural changes)
For this reason, while WPs and tasks were meant to structure and support the effective implementation of GEPs, activities carried out under EGERA were by no mean limited to the planned deliverables, events and milestones: the implementation of each GEP generated tailor-made activities through which structural changes were being initiated and incorporated into practices. As for the first level, over the 18 first months of the project, all 21 planned deliverables have been submitted on time (out of 39 until the end of the project), strictly respecting the content overview indicated in Annex I of the grant agreement. This constituted a significant achievement given the high pace of the work plan and the collaborative nature of EGERA, which indicated that partners have been successful in building mutual trust and efficient collaborations, implementing their own work and coordinating the work of other partners as for WP leaders. Among these documents, 6 deliverables have been submitted, which were of specific relevance to the project’s objectives and expected outcomes:
Under WP2, the first Gender Equality Report submitted on M12 provided more thorough diagnoses of gender bias and inequalities at play, equipping partner institutions with a valid framework for data collection, including key areas and basic indicators. This deliverable also maps out the main spaces progression in assessing gender inequalities.
Under WP3, the first Gender Equality Culture Surveys Report (M18) contributed to make EGERA distinctive, as it places the main issues of the project in the broader perspective of embedding structural changes into a shared culture of equality. This endeavour requested partner organizations to challenge contextual specificities with a common template, and brought them further in the knowledge of their own communities.
Under WP4, Gender training plans and concepts adopted on M8 provided a framework for knowledge-transfer and awareness-rising, which relies upon available standards promoted by the European Institute for Gender Equality.
Under WP5, which embodied the specific attention paid by EGERA to bias entrenched into governance and evaluation mechanisms, the Pilot study delivered on M8 by Sciences Po provided a theoretical framework drawing upon the policy frame analysis developed under QUING (FP6).
WP7 also brought a key contribution to the project, through the website delivered on M6, which reflects both the stage of main EGERA activities, and the impact of the project on partner organizations and beyond.
Under WP8, the First Monitoring and Evaluation Report submitted on M18 provided a detailed account of project’s implementation, focused on the further enhancement of our CoP, and the activities held under our respective GEPs and GT plans.
Similarly, all the 7 milestones events, ratifications or deliverables were successfully met. In particular, the ratification of GEPs and GT plans at the highest management level, ensured that tailor-made actions detailed after the project’s start, are fully endorsed, whereas the first co-event held with the STAGES project highly contributed to the visibility of EGERA, and its participation in the broader CoP that gathers EU-funded structural change projects. However, this account of the work performed since M1 would not fully reflect the endeavour of EGERA, without referring to daily activities which gave substance to the tasks listed in Annex 1 of EGERA Grant Agreement. Carried out in respective partner institutions, those enabled to progressively expand awareness and action in prospect for gender equality, from core teams towards researchers, managers, students and the whole academic communities. Some of the main results listed below, are the direct outcome of this inclusive, multi-level stakeholders’ commitment to the project’s objectives.
I.2 Description of the main results achieved over the first reporting period
✓ Engaging with gender bias and inequalities at the highest level
Acknowledging that effective transformation can hardly materialize without high-level commitment, EGERA constantly placed the emphasis on top-management consultation and involvement. Direct contact has thus been established and ensured that all measures are fully endorsed. Following his commitment to EGERA, Frédéric Mion, head of Sciences Po and member of EGERA consortium board, was designated as one of 10 world’s university champion for the UN HeForShe Campaign, drawing attention on the objectives and actions undertaken by the project.
✓ Rising awareness and moving towards a gender equality culture
In every partner organization, EGERA was soon either established as the main instrument of the gender equality agenda or provided a decisive impulse to bring this agenda further, thanks to the internal visibility of EGERA activities, to the inclusive and participative nature of the processes of change it promotes and to the strategic alliances being built with key stakeholders. In those departments and faculties were innovative measures were being developed or implemented, this impact revealed to be pervasive on long-established, gender-blind practices.
✓ Developing new indicators
Although institutionalizing new data collection mechanisms is a long process, EGERA rapidly brought key contributions with regards to encouraging partner organizations to make sense of existing data, to establish regular monitoring instruments in the form of surveys and to broaden the scope of data beyond HRM, in order to better account for the diffusion of a gender perspective in research and a gender equality culture in the academia. Using scientific, empirically sounded methods for data collection, revealed also key to build consent around new indicators.
✓ Training people and transferring knowledge
Through comprehensive gender training plans annexed to the GEPs and either incorporated or annexed to RPOs’ on-the-job training programs, EGERA placed, from this early stage of project’s implementation, a strong emphasis on training academic communities and transferring knowledge on gender to relevant stakeholders. Such activities have been launched in all performing organizations, with the effective support of SKU (WP4 leader), drawing upon high quality standards and innovative methodologies such as group model building.
✓ Disseminating practices and results
Analysing processes by which long-established practices or bias can be challenged prooved to be of great relevance. This has been done constantly among our CoP and beyond. From its earliest stage, the EGERA community communicated about the solution being developed, the resistances faced and the intermediate results achieved, to the broader academia and to policy makers. This resulted in participating to major academic events such as the European Conference on Politics on Gender, the SASE 27th Annual Conference or the Gender Summit, in promoting the active participation of senior policy makers to our symposia and in addressing major scientific challenges such as climate change in order to shed light on the crucial relevance of a gender perspective in research.
I.3 Description of the work performed during the second reporting period (July 2015-Dec. 2016)
Over the considered reporting period, 13 meetings, corresponding to 5 events to be held in as much venues and countries, were planned. In practice, 10 meetings, corresponding to 3 events convened by as much partners, were held. A steering committee meeting, planned as a stand-alone event in Paris on M32, was rescheduled to be held jointly with other events in Vechta on M35. Three meetings to be convened in Vechta in M35 were cancelled last minute due to an unexpected airstrike, and rescheduled in March, 2017. These minor deviations did not alter the functioning of the partnership. Neither have they negatively impacted the implementation of the project. All EGERA core teams actively engaged in communication and dissemination activities towards the academia, policy-makers and the larger public, including the private sector.
In the meantime, all but two of the 17 planned deliverables have been submitted on time – or with a minor technical delay inferior to 5 working days (out of 22 left until the end of the project), strictly respecting the content overview indicated in Annex I of the grant agreement. As this was consistent with the record registered for the first reporting period, this demonstrated the commitment of all EGERA partners with the project and its timely and effective delivery. Among these documents, 10 deliverables have been submitted, which are of specific relevance to the project’s objectives and expected outcomes:
Under WP2, the Second Gender Equality Report submitted on M24 covered the issues of Human Resources Management, Work-life balance, Fighting sexism and gender-based violence, and Integrating Gender in Research and Curricula. It allowed partner organizations for implementing new indicators and addressing the issue of intersecting inequalities. It also reported about new implemented measures and actions as part of their respective GEAPs, evidencing progresses in the areas of awareness raising, fighting stereotypes, ensuring medium-management support and training academic communities. Submitted on M36, the Third Gender Equality Report covered similar issues so as to measuring progresses, especially with regards to the institutionalization of actions carried out as part of respective GEAPs, which means their incorporation into existing schemes, framework documents, curricula, etc. so as to ensure the sustainability of changes. This report highlighted different windows of opportunity for institutionalization of a gender equality agenda in each implementing institutions, with at least two partners (Sciences Po and UAB) going through a momentum for gender equality policies, while resistances were being expressed at UVGZ in view of some of implemented actions.
Under WP3, the Antwerp Charter on Gender Sensitive Communication in and by Academic Institutions and the Recommendations on Fighting Sexual Harassment (corresponding to D.3.4) were adopted on M24. They resulted from a collaborative work led by WP leader UA at the consortium level. It revealed a high degree of convergence in establishing principles of action on both issues. The Charter was consecutively officially endorsed by all implementing partners, and is being actively disseminated beyond the consortium. Internally, the adoption of the Charter led to noticeable changes. For instance, at Sciences Po, a working group was established to work upon its effective implementation, led by the Director for communication. On M36, the Second Gender Equality Culture Surveys Report (D.3.5) offered elements for assessing progresses and changes with respect to the first Gender Equality Culture Survey carried out on M18, with higher – although much differentiated - response rates this time, due to a more effective communication.
Under WP4, Gender training plans have been implemented to a great extent, covering different target groups (including researchers, HR managers, administrative staff, PhDs and undergraduate students). At all partners, training and awareness raising actions have been actively implemented, with evidences of growing internalization/institutionalization into existing on-the-job training schemes or curricula (as for UAB, Sciences Po or SKU). Good practices for integrating gender in curricula have been collectively defined, and collected for a database released on M37.
Under WP5, which embodied the specific attention paid by EGERA to bias entrenched into governance and evaluation mechanisms, the Pilot study delivered on M8 by Sciences Po was published in Bustelo, M.; Ferguson, L. and Forest, M. (eds.) The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer. Gender Training and Gender Expertise (Palgrave, 2016) and disseminated in a number of academic conferences. Yet, the most relevant piece of work elaborated under this work package was the Charter for Gender Sensitive Governance in Research and Higher Education Institutions. While its structure was delivered on M24 (D.5.3) its final version took shape over 2016, and was formally endorsed and published by all implementing partners (see for instance here) at the time of the submission of this report.
Under WP6, the Recommendations in Dealing with Resistances to the Inclusions of Gender in Research and the criteria for the selection of good practices were timely elaborated by WP leader UAB on M25 (D.6.3) whereas partners were mobilized to provide UAB with good practices compiled into another deliverable submitted on M36 (D.6.4).
Under WP7, two reports on dissemination activities of the consortium were delivered on M24 and M36, evidencing the considerable outreach of the project, including in major international events, and its capacity to contribute to set the standards of structural change in the academia, jointly with other EU-funded projects. Additionally, on M26, a structure and a rationale have been provided, to support the elaboration of a Structural Change toolkit until the end of the project, compiling all relevant instruments to that aim. As many toolkits and databases of that sort are being elaborated worldwide, EGERA opted for designing a simple template, compatible with the one used for feeding the GEAR tool designed for EIGE, with the participation of EGERA experts.
Under WP8, the Second Monitoring and Evaluation Report submitted on M36 provided a detailed account of project’s implementation, focused on the further enhancement of the CoP, and the activities held under our respective GEAPs and GT plans. It showed in particular that several of the management and work planning challenges identified in the first report, have been properly addressed over the second reporting period, to the growing satisfaction of partners, who have acquired a full command over the different layers of the implementation of this complex project.
I.4 Description of the main results achieved over the second reporting period
✓ Engaging with gender bias and inequalities at the highest level
It has been a constant priority and commitment of the EGERA community, to ensure that gender biases and inequalities are engaged with at the highest level of our respective institutions. To that aim, our top leadership was not only called to endorse milestone documents (such as charters issued over the second reporting period), but also regularly updated through formal and informal channels and involved in disseminating project’s outputs. As further evidences, Frédéric Mion, head of Sciences Po and member of EGERA consortium board, did participate in New York in September, 2016, to the 10X10 impact champions event of the HeForShe Campaign, held next to UN General Assembly. He also represented EGERA at the closing event of the 9th European Conference on Gender Equality in Research and the Academia, held in Paris in 2016. Rectors or deans, vice-rectors or vice-deans have also been regularly opening EGERA events and top executives engaged through targeted training actions, as the Group Model Building sessions carried out by SKU for all implementing partners, or the strategic seminar through which members of Sciences Po Executive Board were engaged in September, 2016.
✓ Raising awareness and moving towards a gender equality culture
As it had been already underlined, at every partner organization, EGERA has provided a decisive impulse to bring gender equality agenda further, thanks to the internal visibility of EGERA activities, to the inclusive and participative nature of the processes of change it promotes and to the strategic alliances being built with key stakeholders. Over the second reporting period, building a gender equality culture was also made possible through the adoption of milestone documents (Charters on gender sensitive-communication and governance), and carrying out Gender Equality Culture Surveys on year 2 and 3 of the project, so as to reflect the current status of this culture in different institutional and disciplinary settings. While they do not necessarily covered the whole institutions, GECS nonetheless invited academic and administrative staff to individually assess the stage of their working unit in achieving a gender and diversity sensitive management and way of functioning, providing additional grounds for action. Raising awareness on gender issues was also achieved by adopting a more gender sensitive communication, as at Sciences Po, effectively tackling sexual harassment through new protocols (as for UAB or Sciences Po) or further enhancing work life balance instruments (SKU).
✓ Implementing new indicators
Over the second reporting period, progresses have been made in institutionalizing the use of the indicators developped earlier in the project. Sex disaggregated data have generally been made more accessible to the community, and used as a baseline for implementing actions. Data have been collected and published were they were missing (UVGZ), enriched where they were already regularly collected (UAB, UA), and fuelled legally-binding gender equality reports annually submitted by Sciences Po.
✓ Training people and transferring knowledge
As EGERA places a strong emphasis on training academic communities and transferring knowledge on gender to relevant stakeholders, gender training plans annexed to GEPs have received a great deal of attention. Structuring gender training actions were carried out to build capacities on assessing gender biases and inequalities, gender-sensitive management, gender content in research and curricula, fighting sexism and sexual harassment or dealing with intersecting inequalities or resistances to change. Training activities, which occasionally also targeted students, have been rather comprehensive in terms of audiences, issues covered and levels of responsibilities addressed. Transferring knowledge also took the form of the definition, collection and collective discussion of good practices in the realms of institutionalizing structural change (Structural Change toolkit), gendering curricula and research contents (databases of good practices).
✓ Disseminating practices and results
All implementing partners have proved to engage in intensive communication and dissemination work around EGERA’s outputs, through different networks and channels at the local, regional, national, EU-wide and international levels. This has materialized in dozens of participation in academic and non-academic conferences, seminars and symposia worldwide, including major academic conferences in the fields of Social sciences, Economics and STEMs. This effort also included high-level participation to key dissemination events such as the UN 10X10 Impact Champion event (New York), the UNESCO seminar on women’s education (Beijing) or The 9th European Conference on Gender Equality in Research and Higher Education (Paris), to which most of the EGERA partnership did contribute. Disseminating practices and results with other structural change projects and among the broader circle of Research Performing Organizations implementing a gender equality agenda across the EU has been seen as a priority. This reflected in EGERA’s contributions to cross-EU-funded projects meetings held in London and Madrid, to the closing conferences of the GenderTime and GENOVATE projects and to the design of the online tool for Gender Equality in Academia and Research (GEAR) for EIGE.
I.5 Description of the work performed over the last reporting period (January 2017-Dec. 2017)
Over this last period of the project, 24 out of 45 planned tasks have been carried out (or initiated). Since the launch of EGERA in March, 2014, and prior to the last reporting period, a total of 28 meetings and projects’ events had been held according to the planned schedule. A steering committee meeting, planned as a stand-alone event in Paris on M32, was rescheduled to be held jointly with other events in Vechta on M35. Yet, meetings to be convened in Vechta in M35 were cancelled last minute due to an unexpected airstrike, and rescheduled in March, 2017 (M39). Hence, the last reporting period included two EGERA conferences, held respectively on March 29-31st in Vechta, Germany, and October 16-18th, 2017 in Paris. These two conferences included steering committees and advisory committee meetings, as well as seminars related to GEP implementation and dissemination activities.
With regards to project’s deliverables, all 7 due over this period according to the revised DoW Annex dated of 2017, were dully submitted, 5 of which on time, strictly respecting the content overview indicated in Annex I of the grant agreement. This is in line with the record registered for P1 and P2, demonstrating the enduring commitment of all EGERA partners with the project’s implementation. Among submitted deliverables, five were especially noteworthy :
Under WP4, Collected good practices in introducing gender in curricula (D.4.4 M37), summarized the main recommendations elaborated throughout the project under the lead of SKU, to mainstream gender knowledge in academic curricula. Besides, the Gender Training Implementation Report (D.4.5) submitted on M46, evidenced the long-lasting efforts committed by partners, not only to train all component of their respective communities, but also embed GT actions in existing on-the-job training and life-long learning programmes.
Under WP5 led by Sciences Po, D.5.4 a Working paper on Fighting gender bias as a mark of RRI, focused on gender biases in academic recruitment. This document advocates for fully fledged strategies opening the black box of academic recruitment, and tackling at once all steps of the recruitment procedure, from identifying pools of female candidates and requested profiles, to carrying out interviews with applicants. This advocacy document also argues how such strategies should be framed as a mark of Responsible Research and Innovation.
Under WP7, a Final report on dissemination activities (D.7.7) was submitted on M48, which comprehensively documents the considerable outreach of the project over its full duration. From 2014 to 2017, EGERA partners participated or organized over 380 dissemination activities. Those included participation to international conferences and symposiums on Gender Equality in Research and the Academia on three continents - such as the 11th Gender Summit North America, joining cross-EU funded structural change projects for regular mutual learning and joint dissemination events, publications in high-impact journals as well as co-edited volumes for international publishers. The pace of dissemination activities proves to have been high at all implementing partners, and steadily growing until the very end of EGERA. This was notably due to the reputation gained by the project, thanks to which EGERA core teams members have been regularly invited as guest speakers in international conferences.
Under WP8, the Final Monitoring and Evaluation Report submitted on M48 provided a detailed account of project’s implementation, both at the level its management, and of the respective GEPs and GT plans. It showed that although less efforts than expected were put into building the instruments of a Community of Practices, those being largely diverted to GEPs’ implementation, the whole EGERA community was actually being built as a true community of practitioners, thanks to the numerous venues for cooperation and mutual learning opened by the project, and a fine-tuned combination of tailor-made and jointly developed tools. The report also evidences the high quality of communication within the consortium, which contributed to make project’s implementation relatively smooth and effective. This report also identifies challenges met over the course of the project, and provides useful material for those institutions eager to implement structural change processes.
I.6 Description of the main results achieved over the third reporting period
✓ Institutionalizing gender equality and making changes sustainable
As the project was moving towards its end, the continuous concern of EGERA partners for further institutionalizing implemented actions and make changes sustainable, has become even more salient. Hence, initiatives have been undertaken at the level of all partners, with view to embed their gender equality strategies in the longer term. For instance, Radboud University (SKU) included gender and diversity target figures in its strategic plan 2016-2020 , also adopting a diversity policy plan, called after the first female full professor of the University (Christine Mohrmann), and intended to stimulate gender equality at all levels within the university’s academic and support staff. At UAB, the Fourth Action Plan on Equality (2018-2022) is now on track, building on the successes achieved through EGERA, while at Sciences Po, a Second Gender Equality Plan is currently being validated, with effect from mid-2018, which also largely builds upon the first plan implemented under EGERA. Additionally, this plan will be monitored and assessed as part of the certification process launched in 2018, to be the first French University to be granted the Gender Equality Label awarded by the national certification agency (AFNOR). This label, granted for four years, indeed entails regular monitoring of GEP implementation to be retained over a next period. At Antwerp University, efforts carried out since 2015 by the EGERA team resulted in the GEAP to be included to the broader ‘Diversity policy at the University of Antwerp’ and its objectives were mainstreamed in the policy document valid until 2020. At METU, key steps towards sustainability had already been taken in 2016, with the enforcement of the Unit on the Promotion of Gender Equality and Prevention of Sexual Harassment and the adoption of METU Policy Document on Principles and Strategies on Gender Equality. Last but not least, whereas at Vechta University, a policy against sexualized discrimination, harassment and violence is currently undergoing a legal check prior to its approval, at UVG, gender equality objectives have been mainstreamed in the Ethical Codex and new career regulations approved in 2017.
✓ Implementing EGERA charters
The EGERA Antwerp Charter on Gender-sensitive Communication in and by Academic Institutions, and the EGERA Charter on Gender-sensitive Governance in Research and Higher Education Institutions, approved respectively in 2015 and 2016, are two important outputs of the project. As such, efforts have been carried out to ensure their actual implementation in respective partner institutions, which all reported about significant changes, especially with regards to communication within own organizations and towards the public. At Sciences Po, for instance, endorsing the Charter led to establishing a dedicated working group, which also refers to the guidelines issued by the French High Gender Equality Council for non-sexist communication. With regards to the Charter on Gender-sensitive Governance, although its effects are to be measured in the longer run due to the complexity and variety of processes it intends to challenge, some can already be mentioned, such as the Strategy for academic recruitment being adopted by Sciences Po, which follows several of the Charter’s recommendations, or the inclusion of some recommendations to UVGZ’s new Career regulation framework. Additionally, these Charters have been actively disseminated and promoted, both nationally and internationally, being referred to in dozens of international conferences devoted to gender equality in research, and during conferences held under EU-funded structural change projects.
✓ Disseminating practices and results
More generally, as for previous reporting periods, implementing partners have proved to engage in intensive communication and dissemination work around EGERA’s outputs, through different networks and channels at the local, regional, national, EU-wide and international levels. This has materialized in over 130 dissemination activities, including participation (often as guest speakers) to major academic conferences such as the 11th North America Gender Summit. This effort also included the second participation of the Chair of EGERA Consortium Board, Sciences Po President Frédéric Mion, to the UN 10X10 Impact Champion event held in New York, a major event with a considerable dissemination outreach. EGERA also actively contributed to other EU-funded projects’ meetings such as the GENERA conference in Vilnius and the closing conference of TRIGGER in Brussels. With view to transferring knowledge gained from experience, EGERA community members, including the coordinator, also got involved in the design of the GEECCO (H2020, 2017-2021), and SUPERA projects (H2020, 2018-2022)
II. Main results to be highlighted by key areas of action
II.1 Assessing Gender Inequalities and Bias (WP2)
The main objective of WP2 was to continuously enhance the instruments to monitor and assess gender-based inequalities & discriminations, and their potential intersection with other relevant inequality grounds, including age, disability, sexual orientation and other personal circumstances. Under this work area, of crucial importance for the design of effective strategies, the following results are to be highlighted:
✓ At a first stage of the project, open forums were held in all implementing institutions with an ample array of stakeholders, to discuss the preliminary diagnoses established during the project proposal phase and identify key priorities for data collection.
✓ Following the template provided by the WP leader, a preliminary survey was conducted, to identify gaps in data collection and enable comparison among partners.
✓ A set of key areas for monitoring and assess gender-based inequalities and discriminations, consistent with the GEAPs was collectively identified by partners (gender research and gender in curricula, work life balance, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and violence against women) and used for collecting data.
✓ Collected information was compiled in a first gender equality report established at the level of each implementing partner. WP leader provided a comparative introduction to these reports, reunified into one single milestone deliverable, and drawn general conclusions. In most of our institutions, this report did constitute a true milestone document in assessing gender-based inequalities and discriminations, as no such assessment had been conducted so far, at least to such an extent.
✓ Over the second reporting period, between July, 2015 and December, 2016, two additional EGERA gender equality reports were submitted, providing each implementing institutions with new instruments to measure gender inequalities and biases. Additionally, as these reports are carried out simultaneously by all partners following a single template and common research questions – a specificity of EGERA with regards to other EU-funded projects in this realm – they also allow for drawing meaningful comparisons.
✓ As a consequence of this periodic exercise, partners have made progresses towards WP’s objectives, improving the quality of their diagnoses, and their capacity to root action into collected data analysis. Key HR indicators have been covered since the beginning of the project, using Gender Equality Reports as an opportunity to collect additional data, draw meaningful analyses and communicate with top management on the basis of valid data. It is also worth underlying that each gender equality report submitted over EGERA is meant to place a focus on specific issues, both at the level of each partner, and at the level of the consortium: hence, the 2nd Gender Equality Report addressed more specifically the measure of intersecting inequalities, highlighting differentiated (legal and organizational) contexts for such and endeavour. The 3rd Gender Equality Report addressed the progresses made in implementing each GEAP through the lens of institutionalization, posing the following question: « which steps are being taken when designing and implementing actions for gender equality, to ensure that they are incorporated into established practices, procedures and mechanisms »?
✓ In terms of institutionalization of gender equality actions and other actions aimed at bringing a gender perspective in research, all partners have made substantial efforts to embed GEAPs in their respective institutional frameworks. These efforts were meant to ensure the sustainability of the main measures contained in their respective Gender Equality Action Plans, in several cases with view to the adoption and enforcement of new plans from 2018 onwards (Sciences Po, UAB, UA, Vechta) and in some as part of broader strategic documents or diversity policies (METU, SKU, UVGZ)
✓ It is also worth mentioning that measuring gender inequalities and biases has been increasingly framed as part of multi-level accountability mechanisms, occasionally triggered by the involvement of the institutions in broader auditing processes (Sciences Po, Vechta)
II.2 Building gender-friendly work environments (WP3)
Through the motto of building “gender friendly” environments, understood as working environments in which individuals of both sexes are equally free to develop & enhance their personal skills and capacities, WP3 covered a broad range of issues, including work/private life conciliation, working cultures, formal and informal decision making processes, PhD supervision formal and informal rules, or gender-sensitive communication, but also more contentious problems as sexist violence or sexual harassment in the academia. In this endeavour, the following steps have been taken:
✓ At a first stage, a mapping of existing conciliation measures and of the resistances they encounter, both at the individual and organizational level, has been conducted by the WP leader, against which guidelines have been designed to support the implementation of additional measures in respective partners. As evidenced in the Gender Equality Reports submitted under WP2, these measures shall fit with work culture and institutional features specific to each institution.
✓ The first gender equality culture survey provided comparative data on the situation of respective partners with respect to an inclusive definition of a gender friendly environment, in which people are respected and valued irrespectively of their differences and where conditions for personal fulfilment are met. It is not the least of the merits of this survey, to have involved EGERA partners in a truly collaborative and innovative definition exercise. The second Gender Equality Culture Survey, carried out by late, 2016, also brought new insights on the advancement of each partner in securing the foundations for a gender equality culture.
✓ Also at a relatively early stage of EGERA, first results were to be reported in fighting sexual harassment, such as the institutionalization of a fully-fledged policy at Sciences Po, including a monitoring unit, a protocol and a communication campaign. These incipient steps were soon complemented at UAB, where a new protocol on sexual harassment was enforced, while at Sciences Po, a new communication campaign was launched to prevent sexual harassment and facilitate reporting about potential cases. This campaign has been organized at the level of Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, a university cluster, thus transferring good practices developed under two EU-funded projects (EGERA and TRIGGER) to which Sciences Po and Université Paris 7 were parts. At METU, the Unit on the Promotion of Gender Equality and Prevention of Sexual Harassment was established, granting this large university with a stronger implementation mechanism. At UAB, the protocol adopted in 2016 was enforced in 2017, whereas UVGZ’s new Ethical codex also aimed at preventing all sorts of harassment at work.
✓ Jointly developped at the level of the consortium, the Antwerp Charter on gender sensitive communication, endorsed by all implementing partners in 2016, is another structuring document of EGERA. The principles stated in this Charter are being internalized by EGERA partners, with view to review and update all communication channels – both internal and external – in light of those principles. Significant pogress on visual and written communication have already been achieved by some of them, including Sciences Po, with the adoption of a gender sensitive web-based communication and the lauch of an institutional gender equality newsletter for all staff and students.
✓ As for WP2, several actions undertaken under WP3 in 2017, aimed at institutionalizing prior commitments to building gender friendly work environments, as for Sciences Po, where the 2nd GEP (2018-2022) will draw upon EGERA experience, and be backed by Sciences Po’s involvement in a public certification scheme (Gender Equality label) for work places engaged in GE strategies. Additionally, Sciences Po designed in 2017 a fully-fledged strategy on academic recruitment, to be enforced from 2018. Similarly, the 4th GEP (2018-) to be enforced at UAB, includes further actions on academic recruitment, fighting gender based violence or work life balance, while Vechta enhanced its profile as a family-friendly university.
II.3 Training academic communities (WP4)
Core to EGERA, as it aimed to effectively support structural change through the implementation of tailor-made Gender Training Plans, this WP was also meant to address individual and institutional resistances at all levels, and to make knowledge on gender available to undergraduate and postgraduate students through an appropriate teaching offer, including in STEMs. Under this stream, the following results have been achieved:
✓ Common quality standards have been agreed upon by partners, drawing upon initiatives led at the level of previous EU-funded projects or EU agencies (EIGE).
✓ As by the end of August, 2014, all implementing partners had adopted a fully-fledged, tailor-made gender training plan involving Human resources & scientific managers, researchers, administrative or technical personnel, and other categories. Guarantees have been sought, to ensure the institutionalization of these plans, such as their ratification at the highest level, their articulation or integration in existing on-the-job training programs and/or a wide publicity.
✓ Pilot training sessions using group-model building have been carried out in all partner institution by SKU, and tailor-made training modules have been carried out at all partner organizations already at an early stage of the project. A wide range of audiences have been addressed through these GT actions, including top management, medium-level management, Human Resources managers and other administrative staff, Researchers, PhD students and graduate and under graduate students
✓ Whereas the formats adopted for these activities have been different, a common emphasis has been placed on mobilizing sufficient gender expertise, and tailoring sessions to the need of each partner. In particular, three type of expertise have been mobilized:
- Gender expertise internal to the core team: some partners have been keen to mobilize their own gender training expertise, where available, which allows to build training and awareness-raising modules adapted to their most specific needs
- Gender expertise internal to the consortium: SKU (WP leader) kept providing individual partners with support, through Group Model Building Sessions carried out with top managers at all implementing institutions. Additionally, UVGZ benefited from the support of the Sociological Institute at the Czech Academy of Science
- External expertise: external gender training expertise has been also used, where specific needs had to be addressed, requiring expert skills unavailable within the institution. This is notably the case for Gender Training modules offered on fighting sexual harassment, or integrating a gender perspective in research
✓ Partners further institutionalized gender training and awareness raising actions in 2017: at UAB, these activities received a new spur resulting from the combination of external (legal and policy), internal (UAB top governance support and commitment, design of new GEP) and EGERA-driven factors, which benefitted notably the intensification of efforts aimed at training different categories of audiences, and mainstreaming gender in curricula. At Sciences Po, while the scope of GT activities was narrower in 2017, AR actions involving students – often through innovative, web-based methodologies have intensified drastically, and over 1,000 students were directly engaged by AR actions on gender equality in 2017, all 12,500 being reached by communication on GE and sexual harassment. Regular GT and AR actions were also held at SKU, METU, Vechta and UVGZ.
✓ A strong impulsion has been given to mainstreaming gender knowledge in curricula, through the co-design of a business case and effective experience sharing in this field. As by 2017, it can be argued that significant steps have been made towards integrating gender in curricula, as evidenced at SKU, with a new master programme, Vechta, with a PhD programme devoted to gender or UAB, where a drastic expansion of gender courses is currently taking place.
II.4 Revisiting governance and evaluation models (WP5)
Led by Sciences Po, WP5 aimed at triggering reflection on the impact of the current governance and evaluation models at play in partner institutions (and beyond, in the European Research Area) on gender equality, and producing evidences that investing in gender equality can positively impact governance cultures in terms of transparency, accountability and excellence. Addressing evaluation and appraisal indicators and procedures, in order to eliminate gender bias, WP5 is also meant to fuel other WPs with supporting analyses and instruments.
With this objective, several key contributions have been made over the course of the project:
✓ Through a pilot study, Sciences Po designed a sounded methodology (largely drawing upon interviews with relevant stakeholders) and a theoretical approach derived from critical frame analysis (Verloo, 2007), for partner organizations to investigate gender bias in governance and evaluation. Consecutively, partners engaged with the complex issue of gender bias in governance and evaluation, by conducting pilot interviews and reviewing procedures.
✓ The pilot study and the reports on gender bias in evaluation submitted by implementing partners, have shown that evaluation and governance are intertwined. The management of academic careers is a main leverage at stake for challenging gender biases in evaluation. In order to fight against all biases, the relevance of an inclusive definition of evaluation has been highlighted. The second recommendation was to include a multi-level analysis. The evaluation rules depend on international, European, national and sometimes regional levels. In this sense, the multi-level analysis stresses potential leverages to challenge gender biases in evaluation, as some levels are likely to be used in a more inclusive approach of evaluation.
✓ A first seminar on gender bias in governance and evaluation was organized by WP leader in Paris in February, 2015, during which keynote speakers and EGERA contributors addressed specific issues such as gender bias in defining academic excellence, in teaching evaluation by students or in access to research funding, sharing innovative empirical research results.
✓ WP5 has brought a further contribution to EGERA, with the drafting, adoption and dissemination of the Charter on gender-sensitive governance in Research and Higher Education Institutions. This Charter enounces sound principles and commitments for action in this realm, connecting the issue of women’s access to decision-making and senior positions in the academia, to the review of governance mechanisms and processes.
II.5 Strengthening the gender perspective in research (WP6)
The main objective of WP6, led by UAB, was to provide inputs from the EGERA partnership to the broad reflection on the relevance of gender for selected research areas – among which STEMs, as a crucial component for academic excellence and responsible research and innovation.
✓ A first contribution to achieving this objective consisted in collectively assessing documents (such as checklists, awareness-rising actions targeting different audiences, transversal teaching programs or dedicated chairs) and methodologies (such as consensus seminars, on-line evidence-based instruments...) produced with view to strengthen the gender perspective in research. Collecting, assessing and sharing the effective tools and resources which are currently available, have supported the process of strengthening gender at the level of the consortium, and evidenced the tools we need. This assessment was decisive in guiding the design of criteria and the selection of the cases for an international database of good practices.
✓ The experience of WP leader in training gender-sensitive researchers in different contexts became an opportunity for designing D.6.2 - Guidelines for Awareness-rising actions targeting research project managers, as it offered perfect scenarios for dealing with resistances and for implementing existing and new powerful tools and materials. It led to highlight the challenges of working with plural and diverse disciplines, contexts, researchers, teams, methodologies, beneficiaries, and the different modes of generating results and communicating science.
✓ Two workshops were successfully held at the UAB – notably with the participation of numerous STEM researchers, to challenge and reflects on practices of gender-sensitive research. In January 2016, the UAB organised the 3rd Workshop on gender perspective in research at UAB, where representatives from all EGERA partner universities and research centres did participate, along with the UAB Rector and the Vice-rector of Research. During this meeting, were presented Recommendations in dealing with resistances to inclusion of gender in research, and were discussed and agreed upon the content of the template that served as a tool to collect the good practices in this field, along with guidelines and an information sheet provided to the partners in April, 2016. UAB coordinated the collection of good practices, encompassed in the Database of Good practices Gender Sensitive Research (D.6.4 December, 2016).
✓ It has also be relevant to WP6, to continuously address potential resistances to the integration of gender perspective in research, through appropriate awareness-raising actions, the valorisation of good practices as well as conferences primarily targeting the STEM field, as in Brno (November, 2015), where the challenge of addressing gender dimension from Climate change research, was tackled. This important event helped building awareness among Czech Globe research community, which eventually led a team of the institution, to participate to the gender side event held as part of Paris CoP 21.
✓ Among other contributions in this realm, EGERA also brought about milestone publications, such as the chapter devoted to incorporating gender and diversity in the first Handbook of Research Management ever published (Sage, 2015), and a co-edited book published by Palgrave (2016), engaging with the Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer, including in the context of higher education and research performing organizations. EGERA also helped expanding the gender series published by Sciences Po Press.
✓ It should be added that WP4 and WP6 mutually reinforced each other’s results, as developping gender training for researchers and gender courses at the level of M.A and PhD degrees, further enhanced the capacity of research community to address the gender dimension.
Potential Impact:
III. Impact and dissemination activities
III.1 Impact of EGERA at the level of partner institutions
The impact and outreach of the EGERA project, can be assessed at two levels: a) internally to our consortium, through the structural changes brought to each of implementing institutions, including those achieved through joint activities and b) externally to our consortium, by engaging with orther research performing organizations, as well as policy stakeholders, civil society or the media via dissemination activities.
Internally, EGERA revealed a game changer for addressing gender equality and the gender dimension in research in our respective organizations. This, however, was made possible by using different windows of opportunity and activating different levers for change in each institution. Similarly, the nature and scope of the changes achieved, have been different depending on contexts, as one would have expected.
For the coordinating institution, perhaps to a greater extent that for any other EGERA partner, this project has been a catalyst for institutional transformation towards a gender sensitive and inclusive organization. When Sciences Po applied for coordinating EGERA, the gender equality policy of this leading social science university in France was limited to the signature of the Charter for Gender Equality launched by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in 2013. In terms of gender mainstreaming mechanisms, a gender equality committee involving representatives from HRM and unions had already been established, which contemplated the design of a comprehensive strategy. Yet, although having demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity since the early 2000s, and established a cross-cutting gender research and teaching program in 2010, no specific strategy had been adopted so far to tackle gender imbalances in decision making, academic recruitments, wages or evaluation. Monitoring instruments were limited to those imposed by law, with little evidence of impact on the functioning of the organization. Even more problematically, while pursuing an active policy of internationalization, Sciences Po was lacking robust instruments to prevent gender based violence and harassment, a situation that had been singled out by some of its international partners. A growing contrast was to be noticed, between the active corporate social responsibility of the institution, its cutting-edge knowledge production on gender issues in France, and the absence of a global, multi-faced strategy to actually engage with gender biases and inequalities within the university.
Within 12 months after launching EGERA, Sciences Po had established a permanent Gender Equality Office with one FTE, in accordance with commitments previously taken as part of the Charter on gender equality signed in 2013. Gender Equality Officer was immediately ascribed the responsibility to implement the GEP foreseen under EGERA. A functioning monitoring unit and a detailed protocol on sexual harassment had also been enforced. Simultaneously, a robust gender training and awareness-raising plan had been adopted, engaging with all categories of users of the university. In terms of accountability, Sciences Po Director Frédéric Mion had joined the UN Women HeforShe campaign as one of its 10 world’s university champions. After 24 months, institutionalizing gender equality at Sciences Po had pervaded the work of the Executive, Administrative and Scientific boards, gender equality issues being regularly put on the agenda, whereas the annual, legally binding gender equality reports were being fuelled with EGERA data on the gender pay gap. EGERA-generated data collected on gender biases in professors’ evaluation by students, student’s choices in terms of master curricula or international mobility, were also building the case of pervasive gender biases to be prevented and eventually, eradicated at Sciences Po. Fresheners entering the university in first grade, all received compulsory lectures on gender equality and sexual harassment as part of their welcome packgage. After 36 months, a network of gender equality focal persons had been established in all departments and most of regional campuses, where regular awareness raising actions were being carried out. A working group on gender sensitive communication had also been put in place, while the web-based communication had already been fully reviewed and adapted to gender sensitive standards.
Most important, at the time of project closure, e.g 48 months after project’s start, Sciences Po had integrated gender equality as one of its key, self-defining values, mainstreamed in several key institutional documents and mission statements, such as the pluri-annual evaluation due to the national research evaluation agency. This reflected also in the core relevance given to gender issues and commitments towards gender equality on Sciences Po’s social media, and the growing visibility of gender research outcomes in the overall research and publishing activity of the university. In terms of institutionalization, the GEP adopted under EGERA was expected to be updated and enacted in form of a second GEP (2018-2022), to be evaluated internally and externally, through a four-year award scheme (gender equality label), to be first granted to a university in 2018. In terms of changing the figures of women’s participation in research, although those take usually time, significant improvements are also to be reported, including a gender balance executive committee and scientific board. Moreover, at the end of the project, a fully fledged stretegy was adopted by the Scientific Directorate, with view to improve gender balance in all academic recruitments, a domain where positive trends could already be noticed. Finally, as a further evidence of this virtuous circle, Sciences Po embarked a new EU-funded initiative (SUPERA, to be launched in June, 2018), this time as external evaluator, with view to transferring the knowledge gained.
At UAB, a University with a long record of gender equality policies, embedded into an institutional context (at State and sub-national level) favorable to adopting gender equality strategies, EGERA was meant to give a new spur to already existing frameworks and structures. This was especially welcomed at a time when political changes within this large university – one of the largest in the country, counting with close to 50,000 students had simingly relegated gender issues lower on the agenda, while extensive gender research produced by the UAB had remained rather disconnected from active gender equality policies.
After 24 months, the UAB had finally endorsed and put in effect, a long awaited protocol on sexual harassment, also giving a new impulse to integrating gender in curricula. Even more meaningfully, based upon its role as WP6 leader, the UAB revealed very active in mainstreaming gender knowledge from social sciences and humanities, towards STEMs, engaging on numerous occasions with students and researchers in a variety of STEM fields. EGERA also surely supported the UAB in repositioning itself at the core of a network of gender equality university champions in Catalonia and Spain, intensifying mutual learning and experience exchanges with a number of regional and national universities, some of which, as the Polytechnic university of Catalonia, have joined a structural change project since. And when after 36 month, the assessment process of the latest (3rd) gender equality strategy of the UAB was initiated, EGERA-produced knowledged was embarked to design the next generation of strategy, with view to institutionalize some of the actions carried out under EGERA. In addition, Gender Equality objectives now feature in the Strategic Plan of the UAB, and it is being considered to bring in 2018 the Observatory of Equality from a project-based (hence, little institutionalized) to a university unit statute, so as to ensure sustainability. By the time of completion of EGERA, the UAB can also count with a pool of gender trainers, apt to deliver a comprehensive offer of gender training accross the university, and with instruments in place to mainstream the gender perspective in teaching.
At SKU (Radboud) University, EGERA was not the first EU-funded initiative ever joined by the university. Instead, it consolidated mutually with two other projects running partly at the same time, to bring about actual changes – notably with view to improve gender balance in academic positions. One of the specific contributions of EGERA in this cumulative efforts, was to pervade changes from the Institute of Management, towards other components of the University, especially in STEM fields. As a result, a Gender Equality and Diversity Committee was established at the faculty of science, of which the first conclusions are to be uptaken at the level of the university. More importantly, Gender Equality was included to the strategic plan of the University for 2020, and a detailed gender equality plan linked to the strategic plan was adopted, which largely resonates with the one adopted under EGERA.
As WP4 leader, SKU also actively developped gender training activities, based upon the group model building methodology it largely contributed to enhance and test on gender equality issues. As a consequence, voluntary gender training is now in place and available to the whole academic community, while gender courses and curriculas have been developped, such as two master degrees in Equality, Inclusion and Diversity, one applied to politics, the other one to management. Whereas diversity and gender equality agendas occasionnally conflate or conflagrate in the Netherlands, the strong focus of EGERA on institutionalizing change, as well as the specific investment from SKU on gender training activities, explain the positive output of two agendas which mutually enriched and supported each other.
At Vechta University, an organization with an already strong commitment on work-life balance issues, EGERA acted as a spur for expanding the scope of gender equality strategy. As at Sciences Po, the UAB and METU, a protocol and guidelines on sexual harassment, following the recommendations adopted at the level of the consortium, were put in place, and dedicated commission was established. The position of gender equality officer, which had remained vacant, was further appointed. EGERA actions, which had been carried out in support to the previous strategy, have been formally integrated in a new GEP, to be enforced from 2018. This new strategy embraces an intersectional focus, also reflecting a changing landscape, as Germany, including in a rural area as Vechta, welcomed over 1 million refugees since the launch of the project, of which many are granted access to higher education. Understandably, in this context, it has been a priority for Vechta, to connect gender equality with other potential discrimination grounds, and to address it from an inter-cultural perspective.
Additionnally, with regards to integrating gender in research and teaching, and agreement was signed by the university with the regional government of Lower Saxony, to make of gender a cross-cutting issue in research, while a new gender certificate was put in place, to be offered to students attending gender courses over their curricula.
The Middle East Technical University in Ankara (METU), operated in a fast-changing institutional and political context during this project, as resulted from the aftermath of the attempted coup of July, 2016 in Turkey. While this context has overall revealed consequential for academic freedoms, also impacting the regular governance of the University, METU, thanks to the support of the European Commission and our partnership, has nevertheless maintained the pace of EGERA activities, in line with the timeline of the project. Under the impetus of the project, references to gender equality were integrated to the Strategic Planning of METU, and EGERA charters on gender sensitive communication and gender sensitive governance are widely referred to throughout institutional documents. Moreover, a commission dedicated to dealing with sexual harassment and mobbing was established, following EGERA recommendations on fighting sexual harassment and gender-based volence, and gender training is now available on a voluntary basis to all categories of audiences at METU. Last but not least, METU has also been active in disseminating about structural change throughout the Turkish academia, assuming a leading role in establishing a network of like-minded institutions with view to share about challenges and practices. A first, nation-wide meeting of this network, integrated by close to 50 experts, was held in 2017 in Antalya. Again, provided the difficult context in which operated this partner, its significant contribution to the project, highlight the importance of EU support to implement structural changes also in times of political turmoil.
The situation at the University of Antwerp somehow contrasts with previous examples. In the flemish context, the debate over gender equality policies in the academia had been largely dominated over the past few years by the question of implementing or not gender quotas. In addition, Flemish universities often embraced a diversity agenda along with their commitments to gender equality, two agendas which seem to have only occasionaly met. Whereas the UA team provided our partnership with important contributions, such as the guidelines and tools to carry out our Gender Equality Culture surveys, it appeared less in position to fully impact the diversity policy of the university. Yet, as contact channels were being opened and alliances being built with different stakeholders within the organization, the expertise available from EGERA team members increasingly fuelled the design of new actions. This has also been supported by the EGERA charters. In 2018, the Gender Equality Plan adopted during EGERA will be updated by the Gender Equality Office.
At UVGZ (Czech Globe), joining EGERA was the result of an increasing awareness about gender inequalities in the field of climate change research. Singled out by a foreign member of the advisory board of the institution, the lack of women in senior positions was formulated as a problem to be resolved. Assisted by the gender expertise of the Institute of Sociology, its fellow member of the Czech Academy of Research, UVGZ considerably improved its knowledge of gender biases and how to deal with it. Embarked in a broader process of transformation, characterized by fast growth in terms of funding and human resources, and the move away from what it called internally a relatively « family style » management, it can be argued that Czech Globe considered actions towards gender equality as one of the vehicles of this transformation process. For that reason, gender training and awareness raising activities, as well as focus groups held over the project, proved to be of great importance for all categories of staff, to project their envisions of the future of the organization, tackling management issues and improving processes. Among other impacts, EGERA led Czech Globe to publicly communicate gender-disaggregated data for all staff categories, to incorporate gender equality in most human resources management instruments, including dedicated webpages and internal work directives. Gender equality as such was included to the portfolios of the General Secretary and Career Support agent, and the new Ethical Codex approved by 2017, includes references to gender equality. Awareness raising activities were carried out in different locations of Czech Globel accross Czech territory, and UVGZ’s commitments towards these issues, regularly reported in the newsletter of the national contact point for women in science. With regards to integrating a gender perspective in research content and despite atmospheric physics and other earth sciences present specific challenges to that respect, UVGZ hosted an important academic event on gender and climate change, held a few weeks prior to the CoP 21 conference, where a Czech Globe delegation did participate to a side event organized by France on this very subject. Among other means devised to maintain this impact in the long run, the integration of gender training in research projects applications presented by UVGZ for national and EU funding, already materialized in four successful projects.
It is worth highlighting that all partners strived to expand the outreach of EGERA activities beyond their own institutions, regularly engaging with sub-national and/or national policy stakeholders, other academic institutions, professional associations of female scientists or engineers, networks and the media. All of them did regularly participate to established networks and communities of practices around gender in research and the academia, constantly reporting about their challenges and achievements. In the case of METU, this network was even established as part of the EGERA project, with view to facilitate mutual learning and kowledge transfer. This effort carried out by each institution within its own environment, was complemented, at the level of the consortium, by an intensive dissemination policy.
III.2 Dissemination activities
Led by Vechta, WP7, devoted to dissemination, was primarily aimed at disseminating the instruments and results of actions planned through GEPs, within the consortium, and across broader academic communities at the local/regional, national and EU-levels. It was also meant to ensure the participation of core-teams’ members to academic networks and conferences over the duration of the project and to support experience sharing with other on-going EU-funded projects. This has been made possible through the early availability in the project, of a) a sounded communication plan common to our partnership, b) a well-designed, accessible website (www.egera.eu) providing regular updates on the achievements of the project and c) a graphic charter designed by a professional, providing EGERA with an easily communicable visual identity, also present on the project’s flyer, our deliverables and all our visual communication.
These efforts are also evidenced by the long list of dissemination actions, counting with 241 entries, included to this report under section 4.2 which reflects that core teams did actively communicate about EGERA towards a) their own institutions; b) the broader academia; c) students and their organizations; d) other EU-funded projects; e) policy makers/agents and f) the larger public, as shown by articles published in national daily newspapers. It should be emphasized that this already impressive dissemination record does not include most of internal dissemination actions, are those were carried out as part of the gender equality plans of each partner. Over the course of the project, EGERA dissemination activities were held in over 20 countries, including 15 out of 28 EU member states (BE, CZ, DE, ES, FI, FR, GR, IRL, IT, LT, NL, PL, PT, SE, UK), Turkey and 7 other non-European countries (Argentina, Canada, China, India, Mongolia, Uruguay and the United States).
Dissemination efforts included contributions in major international academic conferences such as the 4th Equality is not enough conference (Antwerp, 02.2015) the European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG, Uppsala, 06.2015) the 27th SASE conference (Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, London, 07.2015) the 9th European Conference on Gender in Higher Education and Research (Paris, September, 2016), as well as poster and oral presentations at two gender summits (EU, Brussels, 2015 and North America, Montréal, 2017). The EGERA presence was especially strong at the 9th European Conference on Gender Equality in Research and Higher Education. Held in Paris in September, 2016, in presence of both academics and non-academics (including high level policy stakeholders), this conference counted with a full EGERA panel and EGERA partners’ representatives disseminated in a number of other panels and roundtables, including during the closing event, notwithstanding the participation of the coordinating institution to the Scientific committee of the event.
Pilot studies carried out as part of EGERA to support the design and the implementation of effective actions, have received a considerable scholarly and non-scholarly attention, due to their evidenced-based content and practice-oriented orientation. This was notably the case of Anne Boring’s quantitative work on gender biases, of UAB team’s contribution to addressing resistances to bringing a gender perspective in research, or UA’s insights for measuring gender equality culture
The experience of EGERA and making structural change “political” and designing effective gender equality action plans with relatively strong accountability mechanisms, has been actively mobilized to support the design of EIGE’s and DG Research’s online GEAR tool, available to all Research Performing and Research Funding organizations across the European Research Area. This achievement is consistent with the cumulative approach of EGERA: beyond the production of its own tools and instruments, our project is committed with fuelling broader endeavours and reflections carried out at the EU level, so as to increase its outreach. A similar philosophy applies to the use of social media: EGERA partners thus prioritize the dissemination of EGERA through existing, much followed channels, rather than using solely its own social media account. As an evidence of the potential of this approach, news on gender equality disseminated by the EGERA team at Sciences Po have been regularly the most shared and commented on the social media accounts of the institution
EGERA partners have being fully using their respective networks and dissemination opportunities, to expand the outreach of the project beyond EU borders. This has been the case when participating to the UNESCO International Seminar and Women’s Education, Beijing, China, June 5-7th, 2016, to the First Forum for Open Sciences in Latin America and the Caribean (CILAC), in september 2016 in Montevideo, to the HeForShe 10X10 Impact Champions Conference in New York in September, 2016 and 2017 or to the 11th Gender Summit North America held in Montréal in November, 2017. While the participation to these high-profile, high impact events, was usually not funded by EGERA budget, it offered valuable opportunities for disseminating about the rationale of the project, the crucial importance of EU support and the results achieved.
Especially strong ties have also been built with so called « sister projects » funded under the same work programme or H2020. EGERA thus actively joined forces with EU-funded Gender Time, STAGES, INTEGER, GENOVATE, TRIGGER, GARCIA, EFFORTI, GENERA or GEECCO projects. Joint activities included joint conferences, crossed participation to ones’ respective events, training activities to the benefit of another project, interviews or participation to the design of guidelines. Held on a very regular basis, with up a dozen of activities per year, they allowed our community of practice to keep track of all tools and instruments developped as part of this cumulative efforts towards gender equality in research and the academia. Within this broader context, the relation of EGERA has been especially strong with TRIGGER, a project which had foreseen for itself a trading role among other sister projects, providing venues for mutual exchanges, as in Rome (April, 2015), London (April, 2016) or Brussels (November, 2017). Cross-EU projects activities have been pursued until the very end of EGERA, liaising with a new generation of projects as GENERA or GEECCO. Additionnally, Sciences Po and SKU embarked in two new projects as external evaluators, so as to share the knowledge gained during EGERA.
Over the last reporting period, dissemination activities from all implementing partners have further intensified, with prospect to support the sustainability of project’s commitments and achievements. Altogether, reported dissemination activities amounted to over 140 only for the last year of the project. All targeted audiences have been reached, and members of the EGERA community have been invited to present, often as guest speakers, in high-impact conferences, and to publish in high-impact journals and publishers, about the challenges, methodology and outreach of the project. This dissemination effort has been cumulative, in the sense that opportunities were pursued individually as well as collectively by all partners, to disseminate widely through other channels than those created by the project itself, and with regards to their respective, specific audiences. Communication with other EU-funded projects and EU-wide initiatives in the realm of gender and science, also remained intensive, so as contributing to create a wider community of practitioners of organizational change for gender equality in research and the academia.
Altogether, the politics of dissemination of EGERA has been one of multi-level, active involvement: partners actively contribute to regional (especially at UA, UAB and UoV), national and EU (all partners) networks. They address both STEM and non-STEM disciplines, scholar and non-scholar audiences, and policy representatives. The few selected examples below, embody the diversity of fora used for disseminating about EGERA:
EGERA-STAGES co-event, Ravenstein, the Netherlands, March 2-3, 2015.
The EGERA-STAGES co-event took place on 2 & 3 March 2015, hosted by the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This event brought together academic researchers, university managers, HR staff, diversity officers and other stakeholders involved in achieving structural change toward gender equality in academia. There have been lectures, discussions, working groups and a train-the-trainers workshop. The first day focused on gender equality training and started with a hands-on workshop for gender equality trainers. The central theme of the second day was the integration of gender in curricula.
Getting engaged with gender-sensitive Science, UAB, Spain, 15 and 22 May, 2015.
The “Getting engaged with gender-sensitive science” workshop took place at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) on 15th and 22nd of May 2015. The Observatory for the Equality of the UAB –along with the UAB Doctoral School- organised the second WP6 EGERA Workshop in the UAB Faculty of Science. The main objectives of this workshop were to strengthen the knowledge about gender perspective in research projects, to study the different theoretical and methodological approaches of gender in research and to facilitate the contact and discussion between research staff, expert staff and staff in training interested in “Gender Sensitive Research” and inclusive research.
Gender Mainstreaming in STEM and Global Change Sciences, Czech Globe, Czech Republic, Brno, Czech Republic, October 14 and 15, 2015.
The international conference "Gender Mainstreaming in STEM and Global Change Sciences" was held in Brno on October 14 to 15, 2015. The conference, which was held under the auspices of the President of the Academy of Sciences prof. Jiri Drahos, enjoyed a great interest. Among seventy participants there were also the scientific coordinator of the project EGERA Maxime Forest from France and representatives of other consortium members such as the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Radboud University Nijmegen, University of Vechta and Middle East Technical University.
METU participation to Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women’s Representation in Higher Education and Research, Istambul, April 18th, 2016.
On 18th of April 2016, Prof. Feride Acar and Prof. Ayşe Ayata participated in the “Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women’s Representation in Higher Education and Research” conference organized by the EU FP 7 FESTA (Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia) Project team in Turkey. FESTA is a sister project conducted by Istanbul Technical University (ITU) between January 2013 and 2017 to promote gender equality in their institution and the conference was aiming to discuss the promises of such an effort and the challenges it faced with the participation of academics and gender experts. Since METU and ITU have been in contact since 2014 in their attempts to realize structural changes in their respective institutions and have been planning further dissemination activities METU EGERA team was invited to the event and Prof. Feride Acar delivered a presentation on EGERA. The session included a presentation by Prof. Çiler Dursun, team member of GENOVATE conducted at Ankara University and enabled the three teams to discuss venues for cooperative work.
Sciences Po’s participation to the GenderInSITE Elsevier Foundation Workshop: "Integration of gender perspectives in science and technology in Higher Education: contributions to the advancement of SDG's”, FLACSO Argentina, April 2016
Held under the patronage of the UNESCO Chair Latin America for women in science, coordinated by Prof. Gloria Bonder, this seminar brought together high level experts from a variety of initiatives carried out in the North America, Latin America and Europe, to confront views and experiences about the effectiveness of gender equality policies in STEM. A manifesto is being developed as a follow-up of this seminar, which led to further dissemination opportunities.
UoV participation in the dialogue initiative “Gender justice in university governance” lead by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture, Germany, June, 2016
Equal opportunity for both genders at university, removal of barriers blocking women’s career paths – the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture, the state’s higher education association and the university gender equality officers have developed shared recommendations for action. On June 2, they were presented at the closing event of “Gender justice in university governance”, an initiative to foster dialogue. The event took place in the old town hall in Hannover. Gabriele Heinen-Kljajić, Lower Saxony minister for science and culture emphasized that „equal opportunities for women are not only a matter of gender justice but also contribute to competitiveness in attracting future generations of researchers. For universities equal opportunity is a matter of quality and thus needs to be a top-level priority. The current dialogue initiative began in June 2014. During the launch three areas for action were identified as particularly important for gender justice; they were discussed further at a series of workshops in 2015: staff development, leadership culture, and participation. For these areas there now are eight recommendations for action intended to promote gender justice in staff development, strengthen gender-sensitive leadership, get more women into leadership positions, and eliminate the gender pay gap.
Sciences Po’s participation to HeforShe Event, 10X10 Impact Champions, New York, Sept. 2016 and 2017
Although not directly connected to EGERA, this event was a key moment for disseminating and communicating about Sciences Po’s commitments and actions towards gender equality. After joining the campaign in 2015 on the basis of our (EGERA) GEP, hosting two HeforShe events respectively in October, 2015 and June, 2016, and participating to the first HeforShe Event 10X10 Impact Champions held in New York in September, 2016, our Director Frédéric Mion was invited to provide in September, 2017 a contribution bringing further evidences of Sciences Po’s commitment on gender equality and explicitly referring to EGERA as a spur. This event received massive media attention worldwide and at Sciences Po. Please note that this event was not funded by EGERA. The full Impact champions report, including Sciences Po’s report, is available here.
Sciences Po’s participation as guest speaker to the 11th Gender Summit North America, session IV « Best Practices: Global Perspectives on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in STEM». Sheraton Center, Montréal, Nov. 2017
Gender summits are the main venue to address the challenges of women’s participation, retention and promotion in STEM from a global perspective. Hence, the invitation to participate as guest speaker formulated to our Scientific supervisor, was a great opportunity to communicate about the achievements and outputs of EGERA. This was done to a large audience comprising of 240 senior policy stakeholders, including ministers at the levels of Canada and Québec, university deans and senior scholars as Londa Schiebinger. Maxime Forest also participated to the award ceremony of the L’Oréal Prize for women scientists held as part of the conference. All pictures and videos of the conference are available here.
UAB Participation at the UniTWIN Network Seminar on Gender and ICT’s, April 25-28th, organized by RMIT and UNAM Mexico, Barcelona, April 25-28, 2017.
Participation at the UniTWIN UNESCO meeting in Barcelona. Joana Gallego participated in the meeting and spoke about the EGERA project during the seminar. The UNESCO UniTWIN Network on Gender, Media and ICTs (the acronym stands for University Twinning and Networking Programme) aims to advance research training and program development in UNESCO’s fields of competence by building university networks and encouraging co-operation between gender, media and ICT scholars. For four days, the members of UNAM (Mexico), RMIT (Melbourne, Australia) UNIVE (Dominican Republic), Complutense University in Madrid, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the University of Padua (Italy) and of other universities via Skype, debated key strategies for promoting gender equality in and through the media, and on a global scale through research and education. They also established a framework for collaboration, the development of strategies for a funding plan, devising a four-year global plan of activities, designing a research program and an education program for the next few years. Tim Francis, from UNESCO-Paris was invited to the seminar and presented the guide on Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media.
METU’s EGERA Workshop: Gender Equality in Academia: Objectives, Achievements and Resistances, Antalya, Turkey, Nov. 6-8, 2017. This was a nation-wide experience exchange workshop, participated by 49 members of different higher education institutions working in women and gender studies, centers and departments in Turkey and by 5 members from Turkish National Commission, Gender Equality Committee for UNESCO. METU organized the event to share experiences and accumulated knowledge in EGERA and to create a platform where discuss issues of gender equality, resistances and threats to the measures and actions taken on that matter and possibilities of collective work to realize the aim of gender equality.
Although NOT a research project, but a coordination action aiming at generating structural changes in research performing organization, EGERA did generate a substantial amount of scholarly publications, of which some can be considered groundbreaking. Those include the already mentioned chapter on incorporating gender and diversity in Robert Dingwall and Mary B. MacDonnell’s (eds) SAGE Handbook of research management (2015) and Bustelo, Ferguson and Forest co-edited volume, including Viviane Albenga’s chapter “Between knowledge and power: triggering structural change for gender equality from inside in higher education institutions” In Maria Bustelo, Lucy Ferguson and Maxime Forest (eds.). The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: A Critical Reflection on Gender Training and Gender Expertise, London, Palgrave, 2016
Anne Boring’s pioneering works on gender biases in professors’ evaluation by students, as well as students’ choices of international mobility or curricula, yet received an even greater scholarly attention. Her article co-authored with Kellie Ottoboni and Phillip B. Stark, published in open access by Scienceopen.com was read over 52,600 times. Based on a robust statistical analysis, partly gathered as part of the EGERA project, her work also found is way in the prestigious Journal of Public Economics (145, 2017, 27-41). It was also published in form of a chapter on “Student Biases for Male Professors in Student Evaluations of Teachers: What Consequences for Female professors?” in Gender and Education from Different Angles, Jarecka-Zyluk & Holz (eds.). 2014. LIT Verlag: Munich. pp. 71-79.
Far from remaining within the relatively seclude circle of the academia, Anne Boring’s insights regarding gender biases in professors’ evaluation, also triggered a considerable amount of attention in non-scholarly press, with about two dozens of articles published in five countries (Australia, France, the UK, the US and Poland), including in prestigious Time Higher Education (UK), Inside Higher Education (US) or Le Monde. This brings the record of EGERA related publications in the popular press to about 30. In the vast majority of these articles, both the content of the project and the support of the European Commission, were duly mentioned. Publication plans of respective partners for 2018 indicate at least 8 additional potential scholarly publications derived from EGERA, including two PhD degrees.
List of Websites:
www.egera.eu
EGERA project Coordinator: helene.perivier@sciencespo.fr
EGERA Scientific Supervisor: maxime.forest@sciencespo.fr
Initiated in January 2014, EGERA brought together 8 research and higher education institutions across the EU and Turkey, bound by a same commitment to the dual objective of achieving gender equality in research and the academia (1), and strengthening the gender dimension in research (2) by introducing sustainable and measurable changes in the organization of our research institutions. The project aimed at fostering structural transformation, thanks to three key enabling factors: a) the strong commitment of their respective management structures and leaders; b) the involvement of all categories of stakeholders, including researchers, teaching and administrative staff, students, social partners and relevant policy agents, and c), the implementation of transformative Gender Equality Plans (GEPs).
These plans address four key areas of action, drawing upon a diagnosis of gender bias and inequalities conducted by each implementing partner. GEPs articulate a structural understanding of gender inequalities and bias in research with a fully-fledged set of measures and actions, tailor-made to the needs and organizational contexts of each institution. These actions cover the most salient issues with respect to the recruitment, retention, appraisal and empowerment of women in research. They are structured into 2 broad thematic streams (Building Gender Friendly work environment & Mainstreaming Gender in Research and curricula), and 2 supporting streams (Enhancing the monitoring of gender inequalities in research & Training academic communities). Officially endorsed and made publicly available at each partner institution, these GEPs have been implemented over the four years of the project, either as the main gender and diversity policy document, or as a supporting document to pre-existing strategies. Consecutively, these GEPs and their respective evaluations, have served as a basis for a next generation of Gender Equality Plans, to be implemented after the project’s closure (2018).
As it was the ultimate objective of EGERA, to develop a shared culture of gender equality, a core importance was given to gender training activities, as a supporting tool for the effective implementation of targeted measures and their embedment into institutions and practices. With view to ensure the sustainability of actions, their transferability to other contexts and their continuous assessment and enhancement, EGERA had been thought as Community of Practice (CoP) for experience exchange and self-reflexivity. This CoP is being developed through a variety of channels, including the full implication of respective partners in 6 out of 8 WPs, regular face-to-face workshops and on-line communication, as well as at different levels: each partner actively engaged with key stakeholders of gender equality policies in the academia at the sub-national, national and EU levels, thus contributing to an emerging, EU-wide community.
But most important, changes were brought to our respective institutions:
- Enforcement of protocols to fight sexual harassment
- Reinforcement of gender equality mechanisms
- Development or expansion of full gender, pluridisciplinary course offers
- Development of fully fledged gender training and awareness-raising plans
- Adoption of a gender sensitive communication
- Complex resolution mechanisms for increasing women’s access to senior positions
- Innovative career support measures
In addition, instruments have also been developped at the level of our partnership, such as a Structural change toolkit, two charters devoted respectively to gender-senstive communication and governance, and good practices databases, with view to enrich the cumulative effort carried out at the EU level to achieve gender equality in research and the academia. These relevant documents and instruments, will be communicated to DG Research, so as to be potentially integrated into the GEAR web-based tool developped jointly with EIGE.
Project Context and Objectives:
From January 2014 to December 2018, EGERA has brought together 8 research and higher education institutions across the EU and Turkey, bound by a same commitment to the dual objective of achieving gender equality in research and the academia (1), and strengthening the gender dimension in research (2). The Project aimed at fostering structural change through the implementation of transformative Gender Equality Plans (GEPs). Operationalized over the duration of the project, GEPs articulate a structural understanding of gender inequalities and bias in research with a fully-fledged set of measures and actions. These actions do cover the most salient issues with respect to the recruitment, retention, appraisal and empowerment of women in research, and to the mainstreaming of gender knowledge across disciplinary fields – notably in Science, Technology, Economics and Mathematics (STEM): Enhancing gender (in)equality monitoring instruments; Building Gender-friendly work environments; Mainstreaming Gender in Research content and curricula; Training Academic communities.
Our project intended to be cumulative, drawing upon major milestones brought to the resolution of these challenges by other EU-funded projects and policy initiatives undertaken at the level of EU institutions, member states and elsewhere. It also intended to take the window of opportunity for addressing research institutions’ organizational structures and routines, ways of doing things and excellence assessment criteria, opened under the 7th Framework Programme by the European Commission (EC), and pursued under H2020. As it has been increasingly pointed out by EU reports, structures, rather than individuals and their capacities, are at stake to explain the uneven distribution of power within research organization, the low proportion of women in certain research areas or their disappearance as they move up the career ladders. This perspective has been thoroughly articulated in the notion of structural change advocated at the EU level, which underlines the key importance of stakeholders’ involvement and top leadership support, as well as the necessity of a comprehensive diagnosis of gender inequalities and institutional resistances at play to support structural change.
Simultaneously, EGERA anticipated new developments in the EU research & innovation policy by implementing socially innovative solution and building the business case of gender in research as part of a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). To achieve tangible results, EGERA thus developed an approach which was both ambitious and pragmatic.
Firstly, participating institutions engaged with structural changes in a way that not only entailed addressing and improving women’s working conditions in research, but also challenging governance models and deeply entrenched institutional practices. Drawing upon a structural framing of gender inequality in research and the academia, they intended to bring about changes in different realms, as pieces of a same gender equality culture which are mutually constitutive and consolidate each other. This not only necessitated to secure top management support, but also to mobilize the whole academic & research communities, including faculty, post-graduate & PhD students, and supporting or administrative staffs. It has been our argument that this effective structural changes could only be reached by increasing awareness and knowledge on gender-related issues through the use of gender training.
Secondly, to carry out ambitious actions articulated in GEPs, EGERA has primarily drawn upon approaches and instruments that have been discussed, experimented and evaluated under previous/on-going FP7 projects, complemented over the course of the project, by those developped under H2020 projects. In its extensive use of gender training, EGERA also privileged participatory and experiential methodologies used in the Gender in EU research toolkit financed by the EC, or the group model building experimented under STAGES.
As further result from this ambitious but pragmatic approach, the EGERA community has paid a great deal of attention to making commitments taken at the level of each institution towards gender equality and a gender perspective in research, as public and visible as possible. This, with view to enhance accountability and gain support. As part of this strategy, GEPs have been made quickly available to our respective communities via institutional websites and other channels, and this has also been the case for the two charters adopted under EGERA.
It is by drawing upon this comprehensive and transformative approach, that EGERA intended to introduce three main innovations:
1) It was the ultimate objective of EGERA, to develop, within each partner institution, a shared culture of gender equality as a matter of Responsible Research and Innovation and a mark of research excellence. This is why EGERA did not focus on a narrow set of core issues, but embraced the issues of gender inequalities in research and the inclusion of a gender perspective in research in their complex, multi-layered dimensions. Related issues such as recruitment, appraisal and proficiency assessment procedures; conditions inhibiting women’s career development and well-being at work; or the mainstreaming of gender knowledge across disciplines and curricula, have thus been tackled at once.
2) This goal was to be attained through the implementation of fully-fledged Gender Equality Plans structured into 2 broad thematic streams (Building Gender Friendly work environment & Mainstreaming Gender in Research and curricula), and 2 supporting streams (Enhancing the monitoring of gender inequalities in research & Training academic communities). Along with the core relevance given to gender training activities, continuous efforts undertaken to fully embed actions carried out in these realms into the daily functioning of our organizations, has been the trade mark of EGERA.
3) In order to guarantee the sustainability of planned actions, their transferability to other contexts and their continuous assessment and enhancement, EGERA was also established as a Community of Practice (CoP) that will be maintained beyond the time line of the project. A forum for experience exchange and self-reflexivity, experimentation and social innovation, this CoP has been structured around a series of internal, face-to-face workshops and a collaborative on-line support named SARAH-AGORA (Achieving Gender equality in the Organization of Research and the Academia). It has also constantly been enriched by cross-participation in joint dissemination events with stakeholders and experts from other EU-funded initiatives, thus simultaneously integrating an EU-wide community in the making.
The objectives of EGERA for each of its reporting periods, were the following :
From January 2014 (Project Start) to July 2015 (end of the first reporting period), EGERA was not only meant to provide the grounds for resolute action in favour of gender equality since already at the stage of proposal, basic diagnoses of gender bias and inequalities at play had been collected to highlight major issues and challenges, and strong evidence of top-leadership commitment had been secured. Therefore, the first eighteen months of the project were expected to bring about key enabling conditions for change, innovative instruments and tangible results in respective implementing organizations :
✓ Providing partners with key additional resources to identify, measure and follow up gender bias, gender inequalities as well as relevant organizational and cultural hindrances to achieving greater equality and introducing a gender perspective in research.
✓ Providing the EGERA community with in-depth, solution-oriented analyses so as to support effective measures to tackle gender bias and building a shared gender equality culture
✓ Institutionalizing transformative knowledge-transfer schemes, in the form of comprehensive gender training plans, complemented by concepts, business cases and guidelines for action
✓ Establishing efficient communication resources, both as supporting tools for the Community of Practices (CoP), and external communication and dissemination channels.
These objectives were to be materialized into 8 project’s milestones. Not every milestone did correspond to a deliverable (in the form of standards or reports), as MS1 and MS3 consisted in the full institutional endorsement of GEPs and Gender Training Plans, respectively, while MS6 referred to the first cross-structural change projects conference to be held under EGERA.
From July 2015 to December, 2016 (end of the second reporting period), the project was expected to bring about tangible changes and achievements as far as implementing structural changes for gender equality and bringing a gender perspective in research were concerned, through achieving the following objectives:
✓ Supporting the linkage between the strategic mission statements of each implementing partner, and the objective of achieving gender equality
✓ Broadening the scope of awareness-raising and training activities of the project to all components of the academic community
✓ Addressing institutional resistances and ensuring sustainable top management support to the project’s objective
✓ Disseminating projects’ achievements towards academic and non-academic audiences (students, policy stakeholders, the media...) through intensive, multi-level communication and dissemination activities, with emphasis on STEMs, cross-EU-funded projects activities
✓ Providing actors of the ERA and beyond with valid instruments for implementing gender equality policies in research performing organizations
These objectives were notably reflected in four project’s milestones. Again, not every milestone did correspond to a (single) deliverable (in the form of reports), as MS8 consisted in a co-event on Gender in STEM convened by partner 7 (UVGZ) on M21, and MS9 and MS11 consisted each in a bounce of deliverables. For MS9, it was the release of the Antwerp Charter on Gender sensitive communication on M24 (corresponding to D.3.4) officially endorsed by all implementing partners by early 2016, and of the Charter on Gender Sensitive Governance in Research and Higher Education, endorsed and published by all implementing partner by the end of 2016. For MS11, it consisted in three reports submitted by M36: the 3rd Gender Equality Report (D.2.5) the 2nd Report on Dissemination activities (D.7.6) and the 2nd Evaluation and Monitoring report (D.8.3). Altogether, these reports were meant to provide an intermediate assessment of structural changes brought by EGERA after three years of project implementation. Finally, MS10 consisted in a Structural change toolkit, of which a technical description was delivered on M24 (D.7.5). This toolkit has been continuously enriched since, and regularly updated versions were made available on EGERA website, best practices being also disseminated through other toolkits and public databases, such as the GEAR repository.
Finally, between January, 2017 and December 2017 (end of the third reporting period), EGERA was ascribed the following objectives:
✓ Institutionalizing structural change in favour of gender equality and bringing a gender perspective in research, through embedding adopted documents and measures into the institutional framework of each institution
✓ Ensuring the sustainability of project’s results through the planning of the next generation of GEPs and/or Gender equality strategies to be adopted in each implementing institution
✓ Disseminating projects’ achievements towards academic and non-academic audiences (students, policy stakeholders...) through intensive, multi-level communication and dissemination activities, with emphasis on STEMs and cross-EU-funded projects activities
Although this last reporting period only included the ultimate milestone of the project (MS12, Final dissemination conference), it has been key to ensure that lessons have been learnt so as to inform further actions, for instance in the form of new generations of Gender Equality Plans, and that the firm commitment of participating institutions to the objectives underpinning the project, will be maintained beyond its completion.
Project Results:
I. Description of main results per reporting period
I.1 Description of the work performed over the first reporting period (January 2014-June 2015)
EGERA has been a fully collaborative project: with exception of WP1 (Management) and WP8 (monitoring and evaluation) respectively entrusted to the coordinator and an external evaluator, other 6 WPs have been carried out by all implementing partners, under the leadership of one of them. Hence, as for other reporting periods of the project, the work carried out over the first eighteen months of EGERA, resulted from the efforts undertaken by all implementing organizations.
In March, 2014, EGERA was officially launched at Sciences Po Paris, in presence of over 120 attendees, including senior researchers and administrative staffs from partner organizations, members of the advisory committee, external academics, students, policy makers and the media. Two ministers in office – the French Ministers of Research and Higher Education, and Women’s Rights, inaugurated the project through exclusive video messages in which they both brought full support to the objectives and concept of EGERA. Two articles were released in major French daily newspapers (Libération, Le Figaro) to report about the project, and a national broadcast program also extensively referred to EGERA. Over the following months, 15 other meetings and projects’ events have been held successfully and according to the planned schedule in 5 countries and all EGERA core teams actively engaged in communication and dissemination activities towards the academia, policy-makers and the larger public, including the private sector. This effort was effectively supported by a sounded communication plan adopted at the start of the project, a dedicated website launched on M6 (www.egera.eu) and a Facebook account. Over this first period, 41 out of 45 planned tasks have been initiated over this reporting period, enabling EGERA to reach its full speed.
At the level of the consortium, the work carried out in the respective WPs was supported by regular face-to-face meetings, on-going monitoring and evaluation and on-line communication through SARAH-AGORA, a project management tool developed by the coordinator and complemented by ad-hoc on-line forums. The work undertaken under EGERA was structured at two levels:
a) Through 8 WPs, 45 tasks, 39 deliverables, 16 milestones and 36 events
b) Through 7 GEPs complemented by 7 Gender Training Plans (one per partner institution involved in structural changes)
For this reason, while WPs and tasks were meant to structure and support the effective implementation of GEPs, activities carried out under EGERA were by no mean limited to the planned deliverables, events and milestones: the implementation of each GEP generated tailor-made activities through which structural changes were being initiated and incorporated into practices. As for the first level, over the 18 first months of the project, all 21 planned deliverables have been submitted on time (out of 39 until the end of the project), strictly respecting the content overview indicated in Annex I of the grant agreement. This constituted a significant achievement given the high pace of the work plan and the collaborative nature of EGERA, which indicated that partners have been successful in building mutual trust and efficient collaborations, implementing their own work and coordinating the work of other partners as for WP leaders. Among these documents, 6 deliverables have been submitted, which were of specific relevance to the project’s objectives and expected outcomes:
Under WP2, the first Gender Equality Report submitted on M12 provided more thorough diagnoses of gender bias and inequalities at play, equipping partner institutions with a valid framework for data collection, including key areas and basic indicators. This deliverable also maps out the main spaces progression in assessing gender inequalities.
Under WP3, the first Gender Equality Culture Surveys Report (M18) contributed to make EGERA distinctive, as it places the main issues of the project in the broader perspective of embedding structural changes into a shared culture of equality. This endeavour requested partner organizations to challenge contextual specificities with a common template, and brought them further in the knowledge of their own communities.
Under WP4, Gender training plans and concepts adopted on M8 provided a framework for knowledge-transfer and awareness-rising, which relies upon available standards promoted by the European Institute for Gender Equality.
Under WP5, which embodied the specific attention paid by EGERA to bias entrenched into governance and evaluation mechanisms, the Pilot study delivered on M8 by Sciences Po provided a theoretical framework drawing upon the policy frame analysis developed under QUING (FP6).
WP7 also brought a key contribution to the project, through the website delivered on M6, which reflects both the stage of main EGERA activities, and the impact of the project on partner organizations and beyond.
Under WP8, the First Monitoring and Evaluation Report submitted on M18 provided a detailed account of project’s implementation, focused on the further enhancement of our CoP, and the activities held under our respective GEPs and GT plans.
Similarly, all the 7 milestones events, ratifications or deliverables were successfully met. In particular, the ratification of GEPs and GT plans at the highest management level, ensured that tailor-made actions detailed after the project’s start, are fully endorsed, whereas the first co-event held with the STAGES project highly contributed to the visibility of EGERA, and its participation in the broader CoP that gathers EU-funded structural change projects. However, this account of the work performed since M1 would not fully reflect the endeavour of EGERA, without referring to daily activities which gave substance to the tasks listed in Annex 1 of EGERA Grant Agreement. Carried out in respective partner institutions, those enabled to progressively expand awareness and action in prospect for gender equality, from core teams towards researchers, managers, students and the whole academic communities. Some of the main results listed below, are the direct outcome of this inclusive, multi-level stakeholders’ commitment to the project’s objectives.
I.2 Description of the main results achieved over the first reporting period
✓ Engaging with gender bias and inequalities at the highest level
Acknowledging that effective transformation can hardly materialize without high-level commitment, EGERA constantly placed the emphasis on top-management consultation and involvement. Direct contact has thus been established and ensured that all measures are fully endorsed. Following his commitment to EGERA, Frédéric Mion, head of Sciences Po and member of EGERA consortium board, was designated as one of 10 world’s university champion for the UN HeForShe Campaign, drawing attention on the objectives and actions undertaken by the project.
✓ Rising awareness and moving towards a gender equality culture
In every partner organization, EGERA was soon either established as the main instrument of the gender equality agenda or provided a decisive impulse to bring this agenda further, thanks to the internal visibility of EGERA activities, to the inclusive and participative nature of the processes of change it promotes and to the strategic alliances being built with key stakeholders. In those departments and faculties were innovative measures were being developed or implemented, this impact revealed to be pervasive on long-established, gender-blind practices.
✓ Developing new indicators
Although institutionalizing new data collection mechanisms is a long process, EGERA rapidly brought key contributions with regards to encouraging partner organizations to make sense of existing data, to establish regular monitoring instruments in the form of surveys and to broaden the scope of data beyond HRM, in order to better account for the diffusion of a gender perspective in research and a gender equality culture in the academia. Using scientific, empirically sounded methods for data collection, revealed also key to build consent around new indicators.
✓ Training people and transferring knowledge
Through comprehensive gender training plans annexed to the GEPs and either incorporated or annexed to RPOs’ on-the-job training programs, EGERA placed, from this early stage of project’s implementation, a strong emphasis on training academic communities and transferring knowledge on gender to relevant stakeholders. Such activities have been launched in all performing organizations, with the effective support of SKU (WP4 leader), drawing upon high quality standards and innovative methodologies such as group model building.
✓ Disseminating practices and results
Analysing processes by which long-established practices or bias can be challenged prooved to be of great relevance. This has been done constantly among our CoP and beyond. From its earliest stage, the EGERA community communicated about the solution being developed, the resistances faced and the intermediate results achieved, to the broader academia and to policy makers. This resulted in participating to major academic events such as the European Conference on Politics on Gender, the SASE 27th Annual Conference or the Gender Summit, in promoting the active participation of senior policy makers to our symposia and in addressing major scientific challenges such as climate change in order to shed light on the crucial relevance of a gender perspective in research.
I.3 Description of the work performed during the second reporting period (July 2015-Dec. 2016)
Over the considered reporting period, 13 meetings, corresponding to 5 events to be held in as much venues and countries, were planned. In practice, 10 meetings, corresponding to 3 events convened by as much partners, were held. A steering committee meeting, planned as a stand-alone event in Paris on M32, was rescheduled to be held jointly with other events in Vechta on M35. Three meetings to be convened in Vechta in M35 were cancelled last minute due to an unexpected airstrike, and rescheduled in March, 2017. These minor deviations did not alter the functioning of the partnership. Neither have they negatively impacted the implementation of the project. All EGERA core teams actively engaged in communication and dissemination activities towards the academia, policy-makers and the larger public, including the private sector.
In the meantime, all but two of the 17 planned deliverables have been submitted on time – or with a minor technical delay inferior to 5 working days (out of 22 left until the end of the project), strictly respecting the content overview indicated in Annex I of the grant agreement. As this was consistent with the record registered for the first reporting period, this demonstrated the commitment of all EGERA partners with the project and its timely and effective delivery. Among these documents, 10 deliverables have been submitted, which are of specific relevance to the project’s objectives and expected outcomes:
Under WP2, the Second Gender Equality Report submitted on M24 covered the issues of Human Resources Management, Work-life balance, Fighting sexism and gender-based violence, and Integrating Gender in Research and Curricula. It allowed partner organizations for implementing new indicators and addressing the issue of intersecting inequalities. It also reported about new implemented measures and actions as part of their respective GEAPs, evidencing progresses in the areas of awareness raising, fighting stereotypes, ensuring medium-management support and training academic communities. Submitted on M36, the Third Gender Equality Report covered similar issues so as to measuring progresses, especially with regards to the institutionalization of actions carried out as part of respective GEAPs, which means their incorporation into existing schemes, framework documents, curricula, etc. so as to ensure the sustainability of changes. This report highlighted different windows of opportunity for institutionalization of a gender equality agenda in each implementing institutions, with at least two partners (Sciences Po and UAB) going through a momentum for gender equality policies, while resistances were being expressed at UVGZ in view of some of implemented actions.
Under WP3, the Antwerp Charter on Gender Sensitive Communication in and by Academic Institutions and the Recommendations on Fighting Sexual Harassment (corresponding to D.3.4) were adopted on M24. They resulted from a collaborative work led by WP leader UA at the consortium level. It revealed a high degree of convergence in establishing principles of action on both issues. The Charter was consecutively officially endorsed by all implementing partners, and is being actively disseminated beyond the consortium. Internally, the adoption of the Charter led to noticeable changes. For instance, at Sciences Po, a working group was established to work upon its effective implementation, led by the Director for communication. On M36, the Second Gender Equality Culture Surveys Report (D.3.5) offered elements for assessing progresses and changes with respect to the first Gender Equality Culture Survey carried out on M18, with higher – although much differentiated - response rates this time, due to a more effective communication.
Under WP4, Gender training plans have been implemented to a great extent, covering different target groups (including researchers, HR managers, administrative staff, PhDs and undergraduate students). At all partners, training and awareness raising actions have been actively implemented, with evidences of growing internalization/institutionalization into existing on-the-job training schemes or curricula (as for UAB, Sciences Po or SKU). Good practices for integrating gender in curricula have been collectively defined, and collected for a database released on M37.
Under WP5, which embodied the specific attention paid by EGERA to bias entrenched into governance and evaluation mechanisms, the Pilot study delivered on M8 by Sciences Po was published in Bustelo, M.; Ferguson, L. and Forest, M. (eds.) The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer. Gender Training and Gender Expertise (Palgrave, 2016) and disseminated in a number of academic conferences. Yet, the most relevant piece of work elaborated under this work package was the Charter for Gender Sensitive Governance in Research and Higher Education Institutions. While its structure was delivered on M24 (D.5.3) its final version took shape over 2016, and was formally endorsed and published by all implementing partners (see for instance here) at the time of the submission of this report.
Under WP6, the Recommendations in Dealing with Resistances to the Inclusions of Gender in Research and the criteria for the selection of good practices were timely elaborated by WP leader UAB on M25 (D.6.3) whereas partners were mobilized to provide UAB with good practices compiled into another deliverable submitted on M36 (D.6.4).
Under WP7, two reports on dissemination activities of the consortium were delivered on M24 and M36, evidencing the considerable outreach of the project, including in major international events, and its capacity to contribute to set the standards of structural change in the academia, jointly with other EU-funded projects. Additionally, on M26, a structure and a rationale have been provided, to support the elaboration of a Structural Change toolkit until the end of the project, compiling all relevant instruments to that aim. As many toolkits and databases of that sort are being elaborated worldwide, EGERA opted for designing a simple template, compatible with the one used for feeding the GEAR tool designed for EIGE, with the participation of EGERA experts.
Under WP8, the Second Monitoring and Evaluation Report submitted on M36 provided a detailed account of project’s implementation, focused on the further enhancement of the CoP, and the activities held under our respective GEAPs and GT plans. It showed in particular that several of the management and work planning challenges identified in the first report, have been properly addressed over the second reporting period, to the growing satisfaction of partners, who have acquired a full command over the different layers of the implementation of this complex project.
I.4 Description of the main results achieved over the second reporting period
✓ Engaging with gender bias and inequalities at the highest level
It has been a constant priority and commitment of the EGERA community, to ensure that gender biases and inequalities are engaged with at the highest level of our respective institutions. To that aim, our top leadership was not only called to endorse milestone documents (such as charters issued over the second reporting period), but also regularly updated through formal and informal channels and involved in disseminating project’s outputs. As further evidences, Frédéric Mion, head of Sciences Po and member of EGERA consortium board, did participate in New York in September, 2016, to the 10X10 impact champions event of the HeForShe Campaign, held next to UN General Assembly. He also represented EGERA at the closing event of the 9th European Conference on Gender Equality in Research and the Academia, held in Paris in 2016. Rectors or deans, vice-rectors or vice-deans have also been regularly opening EGERA events and top executives engaged through targeted training actions, as the Group Model Building sessions carried out by SKU for all implementing partners, or the strategic seminar through which members of Sciences Po Executive Board were engaged in September, 2016.
✓ Raising awareness and moving towards a gender equality culture
As it had been already underlined, at every partner organization, EGERA has provided a decisive impulse to bring gender equality agenda further, thanks to the internal visibility of EGERA activities, to the inclusive and participative nature of the processes of change it promotes and to the strategic alliances being built with key stakeholders. Over the second reporting period, building a gender equality culture was also made possible through the adoption of milestone documents (Charters on gender sensitive-communication and governance), and carrying out Gender Equality Culture Surveys on year 2 and 3 of the project, so as to reflect the current status of this culture in different institutional and disciplinary settings. While they do not necessarily covered the whole institutions, GECS nonetheless invited academic and administrative staff to individually assess the stage of their working unit in achieving a gender and diversity sensitive management and way of functioning, providing additional grounds for action. Raising awareness on gender issues was also achieved by adopting a more gender sensitive communication, as at Sciences Po, effectively tackling sexual harassment through new protocols (as for UAB or Sciences Po) or further enhancing work life balance instruments (SKU).
✓ Implementing new indicators
Over the second reporting period, progresses have been made in institutionalizing the use of the indicators developped earlier in the project. Sex disaggregated data have generally been made more accessible to the community, and used as a baseline for implementing actions. Data have been collected and published were they were missing (UVGZ), enriched where they were already regularly collected (UAB, UA), and fuelled legally-binding gender equality reports annually submitted by Sciences Po.
✓ Training people and transferring knowledge
As EGERA places a strong emphasis on training academic communities and transferring knowledge on gender to relevant stakeholders, gender training plans annexed to GEPs have received a great deal of attention. Structuring gender training actions were carried out to build capacities on assessing gender biases and inequalities, gender-sensitive management, gender content in research and curricula, fighting sexism and sexual harassment or dealing with intersecting inequalities or resistances to change. Training activities, which occasionally also targeted students, have been rather comprehensive in terms of audiences, issues covered and levels of responsibilities addressed. Transferring knowledge also took the form of the definition, collection and collective discussion of good practices in the realms of institutionalizing structural change (Structural Change toolkit), gendering curricula and research contents (databases of good practices).
✓ Disseminating practices and results
All implementing partners have proved to engage in intensive communication and dissemination work around EGERA’s outputs, through different networks and channels at the local, regional, national, EU-wide and international levels. This has materialized in dozens of participation in academic and non-academic conferences, seminars and symposia worldwide, including major academic conferences in the fields of Social sciences, Economics and STEMs. This effort also included high-level participation to key dissemination events such as the UN 10X10 Impact Champion event (New York), the UNESCO seminar on women’s education (Beijing) or The 9th European Conference on Gender Equality in Research and Higher Education (Paris), to which most of the EGERA partnership did contribute. Disseminating practices and results with other structural change projects and among the broader circle of Research Performing Organizations implementing a gender equality agenda across the EU has been seen as a priority. This reflected in EGERA’s contributions to cross-EU-funded projects meetings held in London and Madrid, to the closing conferences of the GenderTime and GENOVATE projects and to the design of the online tool for Gender Equality in Academia and Research (GEAR) for EIGE.
I.5 Description of the work performed over the last reporting period (January 2017-Dec. 2017)
Over this last period of the project, 24 out of 45 planned tasks have been carried out (or initiated). Since the launch of EGERA in March, 2014, and prior to the last reporting period, a total of 28 meetings and projects’ events had been held according to the planned schedule. A steering committee meeting, planned as a stand-alone event in Paris on M32, was rescheduled to be held jointly with other events in Vechta on M35. Yet, meetings to be convened in Vechta in M35 were cancelled last minute due to an unexpected airstrike, and rescheduled in March, 2017 (M39). Hence, the last reporting period included two EGERA conferences, held respectively on March 29-31st in Vechta, Germany, and October 16-18th, 2017 in Paris. These two conferences included steering committees and advisory committee meetings, as well as seminars related to GEP implementation and dissemination activities.
With regards to project’s deliverables, all 7 due over this period according to the revised DoW Annex dated of 2017, were dully submitted, 5 of which on time, strictly respecting the content overview indicated in Annex I of the grant agreement. This is in line with the record registered for P1 and P2, demonstrating the enduring commitment of all EGERA partners with the project’s implementation. Among submitted deliverables, five were especially noteworthy :
Under WP4, Collected good practices in introducing gender in curricula (D.4.4 M37), summarized the main recommendations elaborated throughout the project under the lead of SKU, to mainstream gender knowledge in academic curricula. Besides, the Gender Training Implementation Report (D.4.5) submitted on M46, evidenced the long-lasting efforts committed by partners, not only to train all component of their respective communities, but also embed GT actions in existing on-the-job training and life-long learning programmes.
Under WP5 led by Sciences Po, D.5.4 a Working paper on Fighting gender bias as a mark of RRI, focused on gender biases in academic recruitment. This document advocates for fully fledged strategies opening the black box of academic recruitment, and tackling at once all steps of the recruitment procedure, from identifying pools of female candidates and requested profiles, to carrying out interviews with applicants. This advocacy document also argues how such strategies should be framed as a mark of Responsible Research and Innovation.
Under WP7, a Final report on dissemination activities (D.7.7) was submitted on M48, which comprehensively documents the considerable outreach of the project over its full duration. From 2014 to 2017, EGERA partners participated or organized over 380 dissemination activities. Those included participation to international conferences and symposiums on Gender Equality in Research and the Academia on three continents - such as the 11th Gender Summit North America, joining cross-EU funded structural change projects for regular mutual learning and joint dissemination events, publications in high-impact journals as well as co-edited volumes for international publishers. The pace of dissemination activities proves to have been high at all implementing partners, and steadily growing until the very end of EGERA. This was notably due to the reputation gained by the project, thanks to which EGERA core teams members have been regularly invited as guest speakers in international conferences.
Under WP8, the Final Monitoring and Evaluation Report submitted on M48 provided a detailed account of project’s implementation, both at the level its management, and of the respective GEPs and GT plans. It showed that although less efforts than expected were put into building the instruments of a Community of Practices, those being largely diverted to GEPs’ implementation, the whole EGERA community was actually being built as a true community of practitioners, thanks to the numerous venues for cooperation and mutual learning opened by the project, and a fine-tuned combination of tailor-made and jointly developed tools. The report also evidences the high quality of communication within the consortium, which contributed to make project’s implementation relatively smooth and effective. This report also identifies challenges met over the course of the project, and provides useful material for those institutions eager to implement structural change processes.
I.6 Description of the main results achieved over the third reporting period
✓ Institutionalizing gender equality and making changes sustainable
As the project was moving towards its end, the continuous concern of EGERA partners for further institutionalizing implemented actions and make changes sustainable, has become even more salient. Hence, initiatives have been undertaken at the level of all partners, with view to embed their gender equality strategies in the longer term. For instance, Radboud University (SKU) included gender and diversity target figures in its strategic plan 2016-2020 , also adopting a diversity policy plan, called after the first female full professor of the University (Christine Mohrmann), and intended to stimulate gender equality at all levels within the university’s academic and support staff. At UAB, the Fourth Action Plan on Equality (2018-2022) is now on track, building on the successes achieved through EGERA, while at Sciences Po, a Second Gender Equality Plan is currently being validated, with effect from mid-2018, which also largely builds upon the first plan implemented under EGERA. Additionally, this plan will be monitored and assessed as part of the certification process launched in 2018, to be the first French University to be granted the Gender Equality Label awarded by the national certification agency (AFNOR). This label, granted for four years, indeed entails regular monitoring of GEP implementation to be retained over a next period. At Antwerp University, efforts carried out since 2015 by the EGERA team resulted in the GEAP to be included to the broader ‘Diversity policy at the University of Antwerp’ and its objectives were mainstreamed in the policy document valid until 2020. At METU, key steps towards sustainability had already been taken in 2016, with the enforcement of the Unit on the Promotion of Gender Equality and Prevention of Sexual Harassment and the adoption of METU Policy Document on Principles and Strategies on Gender Equality. Last but not least, whereas at Vechta University, a policy against sexualized discrimination, harassment and violence is currently undergoing a legal check prior to its approval, at UVG, gender equality objectives have been mainstreamed in the Ethical Codex and new career regulations approved in 2017.
✓ Implementing EGERA charters
The EGERA Antwerp Charter on Gender-sensitive Communication in and by Academic Institutions, and the EGERA Charter on Gender-sensitive Governance in Research and Higher Education Institutions, approved respectively in 2015 and 2016, are two important outputs of the project. As such, efforts have been carried out to ensure their actual implementation in respective partner institutions, which all reported about significant changes, especially with regards to communication within own organizations and towards the public. At Sciences Po, for instance, endorsing the Charter led to establishing a dedicated working group, which also refers to the guidelines issued by the French High Gender Equality Council for non-sexist communication. With regards to the Charter on Gender-sensitive Governance, although its effects are to be measured in the longer run due to the complexity and variety of processes it intends to challenge, some can already be mentioned, such as the Strategy for academic recruitment being adopted by Sciences Po, which follows several of the Charter’s recommendations, or the inclusion of some recommendations to UVGZ’s new Career regulation framework. Additionally, these Charters have been actively disseminated and promoted, both nationally and internationally, being referred to in dozens of international conferences devoted to gender equality in research, and during conferences held under EU-funded structural change projects.
✓ Disseminating practices and results
More generally, as for previous reporting periods, implementing partners have proved to engage in intensive communication and dissemination work around EGERA’s outputs, through different networks and channels at the local, regional, national, EU-wide and international levels. This has materialized in over 130 dissemination activities, including participation (often as guest speakers) to major academic conferences such as the 11th North America Gender Summit. This effort also included the second participation of the Chair of EGERA Consortium Board, Sciences Po President Frédéric Mion, to the UN 10X10 Impact Champion event held in New York, a major event with a considerable dissemination outreach. EGERA also actively contributed to other EU-funded projects’ meetings such as the GENERA conference in Vilnius and the closing conference of TRIGGER in Brussels. With view to transferring knowledge gained from experience, EGERA community members, including the coordinator, also got involved in the design of the GEECCO (H2020, 2017-2021), and SUPERA projects (H2020, 2018-2022)
II. Main results to be highlighted by key areas of action
II.1 Assessing Gender Inequalities and Bias (WP2)
The main objective of WP2 was to continuously enhance the instruments to monitor and assess gender-based inequalities & discriminations, and their potential intersection with other relevant inequality grounds, including age, disability, sexual orientation and other personal circumstances. Under this work area, of crucial importance for the design of effective strategies, the following results are to be highlighted:
✓ At a first stage of the project, open forums were held in all implementing institutions with an ample array of stakeholders, to discuss the preliminary diagnoses established during the project proposal phase and identify key priorities for data collection.
✓ Following the template provided by the WP leader, a preliminary survey was conducted, to identify gaps in data collection and enable comparison among partners.
✓ A set of key areas for monitoring and assess gender-based inequalities and discriminations, consistent with the GEAPs was collectively identified by partners (gender research and gender in curricula, work life balance, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and violence against women) and used for collecting data.
✓ Collected information was compiled in a first gender equality report established at the level of each implementing partner. WP leader provided a comparative introduction to these reports, reunified into one single milestone deliverable, and drawn general conclusions. In most of our institutions, this report did constitute a true milestone document in assessing gender-based inequalities and discriminations, as no such assessment had been conducted so far, at least to such an extent.
✓ Over the second reporting period, between July, 2015 and December, 2016, two additional EGERA gender equality reports were submitted, providing each implementing institutions with new instruments to measure gender inequalities and biases. Additionally, as these reports are carried out simultaneously by all partners following a single template and common research questions – a specificity of EGERA with regards to other EU-funded projects in this realm – they also allow for drawing meaningful comparisons.
✓ As a consequence of this periodic exercise, partners have made progresses towards WP’s objectives, improving the quality of their diagnoses, and their capacity to root action into collected data analysis. Key HR indicators have been covered since the beginning of the project, using Gender Equality Reports as an opportunity to collect additional data, draw meaningful analyses and communicate with top management on the basis of valid data. It is also worth underlying that each gender equality report submitted over EGERA is meant to place a focus on specific issues, both at the level of each partner, and at the level of the consortium: hence, the 2nd Gender Equality Report addressed more specifically the measure of intersecting inequalities, highlighting differentiated (legal and organizational) contexts for such and endeavour. The 3rd Gender Equality Report addressed the progresses made in implementing each GEAP through the lens of institutionalization, posing the following question: « which steps are being taken when designing and implementing actions for gender equality, to ensure that they are incorporated into established practices, procedures and mechanisms »?
✓ In terms of institutionalization of gender equality actions and other actions aimed at bringing a gender perspective in research, all partners have made substantial efforts to embed GEAPs in their respective institutional frameworks. These efforts were meant to ensure the sustainability of the main measures contained in their respective Gender Equality Action Plans, in several cases with view to the adoption and enforcement of new plans from 2018 onwards (Sciences Po, UAB, UA, Vechta) and in some as part of broader strategic documents or diversity policies (METU, SKU, UVGZ)
✓ It is also worth mentioning that measuring gender inequalities and biases has been increasingly framed as part of multi-level accountability mechanisms, occasionally triggered by the involvement of the institutions in broader auditing processes (Sciences Po, Vechta)
II.2 Building gender-friendly work environments (WP3)
Through the motto of building “gender friendly” environments, understood as working environments in which individuals of both sexes are equally free to develop & enhance their personal skills and capacities, WP3 covered a broad range of issues, including work/private life conciliation, working cultures, formal and informal decision making processes, PhD supervision formal and informal rules, or gender-sensitive communication, but also more contentious problems as sexist violence or sexual harassment in the academia. In this endeavour, the following steps have been taken:
✓ At a first stage, a mapping of existing conciliation measures and of the resistances they encounter, both at the individual and organizational level, has been conducted by the WP leader, against which guidelines have been designed to support the implementation of additional measures in respective partners. As evidenced in the Gender Equality Reports submitted under WP2, these measures shall fit with work culture and institutional features specific to each institution.
✓ The first gender equality culture survey provided comparative data on the situation of respective partners with respect to an inclusive definition of a gender friendly environment, in which people are respected and valued irrespectively of their differences and where conditions for personal fulfilment are met. It is not the least of the merits of this survey, to have involved EGERA partners in a truly collaborative and innovative definition exercise. The second Gender Equality Culture Survey, carried out by late, 2016, also brought new insights on the advancement of each partner in securing the foundations for a gender equality culture.
✓ Also at a relatively early stage of EGERA, first results were to be reported in fighting sexual harassment, such as the institutionalization of a fully-fledged policy at Sciences Po, including a monitoring unit, a protocol and a communication campaign. These incipient steps were soon complemented at UAB, where a new protocol on sexual harassment was enforced, while at Sciences Po, a new communication campaign was launched to prevent sexual harassment and facilitate reporting about potential cases. This campaign has been organized at the level of Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, a university cluster, thus transferring good practices developed under two EU-funded projects (EGERA and TRIGGER) to which Sciences Po and Université Paris 7 were parts. At METU, the Unit on the Promotion of Gender Equality and Prevention of Sexual Harassment was established, granting this large university with a stronger implementation mechanism. At UAB, the protocol adopted in 2016 was enforced in 2017, whereas UVGZ’s new Ethical codex also aimed at preventing all sorts of harassment at work.
✓ Jointly developped at the level of the consortium, the Antwerp Charter on gender sensitive communication, endorsed by all implementing partners in 2016, is another structuring document of EGERA. The principles stated in this Charter are being internalized by EGERA partners, with view to review and update all communication channels – both internal and external – in light of those principles. Significant pogress on visual and written communication have already been achieved by some of them, including Sciences Po, with the adoption of a gender sensitive web-based communication and the lauch of an institutional gender equality newsletter for all staff and students.
✓ As for WP2, several actions undertaken under WP3 in 2017, aimed at institutionalizing prior commitments to building gender friendly work environments, as for Sciences Po, where the 2nd GEP (2018-2022) will draw upon EGERA experience, and be backed by Sciences Po’s involvement in a public certification scheme (Gender Equality label) for work places engaged in GE strategies. Additionally, Sciences Po designed in 2017 a fully-fledged strategy on academic recruitment, to be enforced from 2018. Similarly, the 4th GEP (2018-) to be enforced at UAB, includes further actions on academic recruitment, fighting gender based violence or work life balance, while Vechta enhanced its profile as a family-friendly university.
II.3 Training academic communities (WP4)
Core to EGERA, as it aimed to effectively support structural change through the implementation of tailor-made Gender Training Plans, this WP was also meant to address individual and institutional resistances at all levels, and to make knowledge on gender available to undergraduate and postgraduate students through an appropriate teaching offer, including in STEMs. Under this stream, the following results have been achieved:
✓ Common quality standards have been agreed upon by partners, drawing upon initiatives led at the level of previous EU-funded projects or EU agencies (EIGE).
✓ As by the end of August, 2014, all implementing partners had adopted a fully-fledged, tailor-made gender training plan involving Human resources & scientific managers, researchers, administrative or technical personnel, and other categories. Guarantees have been sought, to ensure the institutionalization of these plans, such as their ratification at the highest level, their articulation or integration in existing on-the-job training programs and/or a wide publicity.
✓ Pilot training sessions using group-model building have been carried out in all partner institution by SKU, and tailor-made training modules have been carried out at all partner organizations already at an early stage of the project. A wide range of audiences have been addressed through these GT actions, including top management, medium-level management, Human Resources managers and other administrative staff, Researchers, PhD students and graduate and under graduate students
✓ Whereas the formats adopted for these activities have been different, a common emphasis has been placed on mobilizing sufficient gender expertise, and tailoring sessions to the need of each partner. In particular, three type of expertise have been mobilized:
- Gender expertise internal to the core team: some partners have been keen to mobilize their own gender training expertise, where available, which allows to build training and awareness-raising modules adapted to their most specific needs
- Gender expertise internal to the consortium: SKU (WP leader) kept providing individual partners with support, through Group Model Building Sessions carried out with top managers at all implementing institutions. Additionally, UVGZ benefited from the support of the Sociological Institute at the Czech Academy of Science
- External expertise: external gender training expertise has been also used, where specific needs had to be addressed, requiring expert skills unavailable within the institution. This is notably the case for Gender Training modules offered on fighting sexual harassment, or integrating a gender perspective in research
✓ Partners further institutionalized gender training and awareness raising actions in 2017: at UAB, these activities received a new spur resulting from the combination of external (legal and policy), internal (UAB top governance support and commitment, design of new GEP) and EGERA-driven factors, which benefitted notably the intensification of efforts aimed at training different categories of audiences, and mainstreaming gender in curricula. At Sciences Po, while the scope of GT activities was narrower in 2017, AR actions involving students – often through innovative, web-based methodologies have intensified drastically, and over 1,000 students were directly engaged by AR actions on gender equality in 2017, all 12,500 being reached by communication on GE and sexual harassment. Regular GT and AR actions were also held at SKU, METU, Vechta and UVGZ.
✓ A strong impulsion has been given to mainstreaming gender knowledge in curricula, through the co-design of a business case and effective experience sharing in this field. As by 2017, it can be argued that significant steps have been made towards integrating gender in curricula, as evidenced at SKU, with a new master programme, Vechta, with a PhD programme devoted to gender or UAB, where a drastic expansion of gender courses is currently taking place.
II.4 Revisiting governance and evaluation models (WP5)
Led by Sciences Po, WP5 aimed at triggering reflection on the impact of the current governance and evaluation models at play in partner institutions (and beyond, in the European Research Area) on gender equality, and producing evidences that investing in gender equality can positively impact governance cultures in terms of transparency, accountability and excellence. Addressing evaluation and appraisal indicators and procedures, in order to eliminate gender bias, WP5 is also meant to fuel other WPs with supporting analyses and instruments.
With this objective, several key contributions have been made over the course of the project:
✓ Through a pilot study, Sciences Po designed a sounded methodology (largely drawing upon interviews with relevant stakeholders) and a theoretical approach derived from critical frame analysis (Verloo, 2007), for partner organizations to investigate gender bias in governance and evaluation. Consecutively, partners engaged with the complex issue of gender bias in governance and evaluation, by conducting pilot interviews and reviewing procedures.
✓ The pilot study and the reports on gender bias in evaluation submitted by implementing partners, have shown that evaluation and governance are intertwined. The management of academic careers is a main leverage at stake for challenging gender biases in evaluation. In order to fight against all biases, the relevance of an inclusive definition of evaluation has been highlighted. The second recommendation was to include a multi-level analysis. The evaluation rules depend on international, European, national and sometimes regional levels. In this sense, the multi-level analysis stresses potential leverages to challenge gender biases in evaluation, as some levels are likely to be used in a more inclusive approach of evaluation.
✓ A first seminar on gender bias in governance and evaluation was organized by WP leader in Paris in February, 2015, during which keynote speakers and EGERA contributors addressed specific issues such as gender bias in defining academic excellence, in teaching evaluation by students or in access to research funding, sharing innovative empirical research results.
✓ WP5 has brought a further contribution to EGERA, with the drafting, adoption and dissemination of the Charter on gender-sensitive governance in Research and Higher Education Institutions. This Charter enounces sound principles and commitments for action in this realm, connecting the issue of women’s access to decision-making and senior positions in the academia, to the review of governance mechanisms and processes.
II.5 Strengthening the gender perspective in research (WP6)
The main objective of WP6, led by UAB, was to provide inputs from the EGERA partnership to the broad reflection on the relevance of gender for selected research areas – among which STEMs, as a crucial component for academic excellence and responsible research and innovation.
✓ A first contribution to achieving this objective consisted in collectively assessing documents (such as checklists, awareness-rising actions targeting different audiences, transversal teaching programs or dedicated chairs) and methodologies (such as consensus seminars, on-line evidence-based instruments...) produced with view to strengthen the gender perspective in research. Collecting, assessing and sharing the effective tools and resources which are currently available, have supported the process of strengthening gender at the level of the consortium, and evidenced the tools we need. This assessment was decisive in guiding the design of criteria and the selection of the cases for an international database of good practices.
✓ The experience of WP leader in training gender-sensitive researchers in different contexts became an opportunity for designing D.6.2 - Guidelines for Awareness-rising actions targeting research project managers, as it offered perfect scenarios for dealing with resistances and for implementing existing and new powerful tools and materials. It led to highlight the challenges of working with plural and diverse disciplines, contexts, researchers, teams, methodologies, beneficiaries, and the different modes of generating results and communicating science.
✓ Two workshops were successfully held at the UAB – notably with the participation of numerous STEM researchers, to challenge and reflects on practices of gender-sensitive research. In January 2016, the UAB organised the 3rd Workshop on gender perspective in research at UAB, where representatives from all EGERA partner universities and research centres did participate, along with the UAB Rector and the Vice-rector of Research. During this meeting, were presented Recommendations in dealing with resistances to inclusion of gender in research, and were discussed and agreed upon the content of the template that served as a tool to collect the good practices in this field, along with guidelines and an information sheet provided to the partners in April, 2016. UAB coordinated the collection of good practices, encompassed in the Database of Good practices Gender Sensitive Research (D.6.4 December, 2016).
✓ It has also be relevant to WP6, to continuously address potential resistances to the integration of gender perspective in research, through appropriate awareness-raising actions, the valorisation of good practices as well as conferences primarily targeting the STEM field, as in Brno (November, 2015), where the challenge of addressing gender dimension from Climate change research, was tackled. This important event helped building awareness among Czech Globe research community, which eventually led a team of the institution, to participate to the gender side event held as part of Paris CoP 21.
✓ Among other contributions in this realm, EGERA also brought about milestone publications, such as the chapter devoted to incorporating gender and diversity in the first Handbook of Research Management ever published (Sage, 2015), and a co-edited book published by Palgrave (2016), engaging with the Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer, including in the context of higher education and research performing organizations. EGERA also helped expanding the gender series published by Sciences Po Press.
✓ It should be added that WP4 and WP6 mutually reinforced each other’s results, as developping gender training for researchers and gender courses at the level of M.A and PhD degrees, further enhanced the capacity of research community to address the gender dimension.
Potential Impact:
III. Impact and dissemination activities
III.1 Impact of EGERA at the level of partner institutions
The impact and outreach of the EGERA project, can be assessed at two levels: a) internally to our consortium, through the structural changes brought to each of implementing institutions, including those achieved through joint activities and b) externally to our consortium, by engaging with orther research performing organizations, as well as policy stakeholders, civil society or the media via dissemination activities.
Internally, EGERA revealed a game changer for addressing gender equality and the gender dimension in research in our respective organizations. This, however, was made possible by using different windows of opportunity and activating different levers for change in each institution. Similarly, the nature and scope of the changes achieved, have been different depending on contexts, as one would have expected.
For the coordinating institution, perhaps to a greater extent that for any other EGERA partner, this project has been a catalyst for institutional transformation towards a gender sensitive and inclusive organization. When Sciences Po applied for coordinating EGERA, the gender equality policy of this leading social science university in France was limited to the signature of the Charter for Gender Equality launched by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in 2013. In terms of gender mainstreaming mechanisms, a gender equality committee involving representatives from HRM and unions had already been established, which contemplated the design of a comprehensive strategy. Yet, although having demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity since the early 2000s, and established a cross-cutting gender research and teaching program in 2010, no specific strategy had been adopted so far to tackle gender imbalances in decision making, academic recruitments, wages or evaluation. Monitoring instruments were limited to those imposed by law, with little evidence of impact on the functioning of the organization. Even more problematically, while pursuing an active policy of internationalization, Sciences Po was lacking robust instruments to prevent gender based violence and harassment, a situation that had been singled out by some of its international partners. A growing contrast was to be noticed, between the active corporate social responsibility of the institution, its cutting-edge knowledge production on gender issues in France, and the absence of a global, multi-faced strategy to actually engage with gender biases and inequalities within the university.
Within 12 months after launching EGERA, Sciences Po had established a permanent Gender Equality Office with one FTE, in accordance with commitments previously taken as part of the Charter on gender equality signed in 2013. Gender Equality Officer was immediately ascribed the responsibility to implement the GEP foreseen under EGERA. A functioning monitoring unit and a detailed protocol on sexual harassment had also been enforced. Simultaneously, a robust gender training and awareness-raising plan had been adopted, engaging with all categories of users of the university. In terms of accountability, Sciences Po Director Frédéric Mion had joined the UN Women HeforShe campaign as one of its 10 world’s university champions. After 24 months, institutionalizing gender equality at Sciences Po had pervaded the work of the Executive, Administrative and Scientific boards, gender equality issues being regularly put on the agenda, whereas the annual, legally binding gender equality reports were being fuelled with EGERA data on the gender pay gap. EGERA-generated data collected on gender biases in professors’ evaluation by students, student’s choices in terms of master curricula or international mobility, were also building the case of pervasive gender biases to be prevented and eventually, eradicated at Sciences Po. Fresheners entering the university in first grade, all received compulsory lectures on gender equality and sexual harassment as part of their welcome packgage. After 36 months, a network of gender equality focal persons had been established in all departments and most of regional campuses, where regular awareness raising actions were being carried out. A working group on gender sensitive communication had also been put in place, while the web-based communication had already been fully reviewed and adapted to gender sensitive standards.
Most important, at the time of project closure, e.g 48 months after project’s start, Sciences Po had integrated gender equality as one of its key, self-defining values, mainstreamed in several key institutional documents and mission statements, such as the pluri-annual evaluation due to the national research evaluation agency. This reflected also in the core relevance given to gender issues and commitments towards gender equality on Sciences Po’s social media, and the growing visibility of gender research outcomes in the overall research and publishing activity of the university. In terms of institutionalization, the GEP adopted under EGERA was expected to be updated and enacted in form of a second GEP (2018-2022), to be evaluated internally and externally, through a four-year award scheme (gender equality label), to be first granted to a university in 2018. In terms of changing the figures of women’s participation in research, although those take usually time, significant improvements are also to be reported, including a gender balance executive committee and scientific board. Moreover, at the end of the project, a fully fledged stretegy was adopted by the Scientific Directorate, with view to improve gender balance in all academic recruitments, a domain where positive trends could already be noticed. Finally, as a further evidence of this virtuous circle, Sciences Po embarked a new EU-funded initiative (SUPERA, to be launched in June, 2018), this time as external evaluator, with view to transferring the knowledge gained.
At UAB, a University with a long record of gender equality policies, embedded into an institutional context (at State and sub-national level) favorable to adopting gender equality strategies, EGERA was meant to give a new spur to already existing frameworks and structures. This was especially welcomed at a time when political changes within this large university – one of the largest in the country, counting with close to 50,000 students had simingly relegated gender issues lower on the agenda, while extensive gender research produced by the UAB had remained rather disconnected from active gender equality policies.
After 24 months, the UAB had finally endorsed and put in effect, a long awaited protocol on sexual harassment, also giving a new impulse to integrating gender in curricula. Even more meaningfully, based upon its role as WP6 leader, the UAB revealed very active in mainstreaming gender knowledge from social sciences and humanities, towards STEMs, engaging on numerous occasions with students and researchers in a variety of STEM fields. EGERA also surely supported the UAB in repositioning itself at the core of a network of gender equality university champions in Catalonia and Spain, intensifying mutual learning and experience exchanges with a number of regional and national universities, some of which, as the Polytechnic university of Catalonia, have joined a structural change project since. And when after 36 month, the assessment process of the latest (3rd) gender equality strategy of the UAB was initiated, EGERA-produced knowledged was embarked to design the next generation of strategy, with view to institutionalize some of the actions carried out under EGERA. In addition, Gender Equality objectives now feature in the Strategic Plan of the UAB, and it is being considered to bring in 2018 the Observatory of Equality from a project-based (hence, little institutionalized) to a university unit statute, so as to ensure sustainability. By the time of completion of EGERA, the UAB can also count with a pool of gender trainers, apt to deliver a comprehensive offer of gender training accross the university, and with instruments in place to mainstream the gender perspective in teaching.
At SKU (Radboud) University, EGERA was not the first EU-funded initiative ever joined by the university. Instead, it consolidated mutually with two other projects running partly at the same time, to bring about actual changes – notably with view to improve gender balance in academic positions. One of the specific contributions of EGERA in this cumulative efforts, was to pervade changes from the Institute of Management, towards other components of the University, especially in STEM fields. As a result, a Gender Equality and Diversity Committee was established at the faculty of science, of which the first conclusions are to be uptaken at the level of the university. More importantly, Gender Equality was included to the strategic plan of the University for 2020, and a detailed gender equality plan linked to the strategic plan was adopted, which largely resonates with the one adopted under EGERA.
As WP4 leader, SKU also actively developped gender training activities, based upon the group model building methodology it largely contributed to enhance and test on gender equality issues. As a consequence, voluntary gender training is now in place and available to the whole academic community, while gender courses and curriculas have been developped, such as two master degrees in Equality, Inclusion and Diversity, one applied to politics, the other one to management. Whereas diversity and gender equality agendas occasionnally conflate or conflagrate in the Netherlands, the strong focus of EGERA on institutionalizing change, as well as the specific investment from SKU on gender training activities, explain the positive output of two agendas which mutually enriched and supported each other.
At Vechta University, an organization with an already strong commitment on work-life balance issues, EGERA acted as a spur for expanding the scope of gender equality strategy. As at Sciences Po, the UAB and METU, a protocol and guidelines on sexual harassment, following the recommendations adopted at the level of the consortium, were put in place, and dedicated commission was established. The position of gender equality officer, which had remained vacant, was further appointed. EGERA actions, which had been carried out in support to the previous strategy, have been formally integrated in a new GEP, to be enforced from 2018. This new strategy embraces an intersectional focus, also reflecting a changing landscape, as Germany, including in a rural area as Vechta, welcomed over 1 million refugees since the launch of the project, of which many are granted access to higher education. Understandably, in this context, it has been a priority for Vechta, to connect gender equality with other potential discrimination grounds, and to address it from an inter-cultural perspective.
Additionnally, with regards to integrating gender in research and teaching, and agreement was signed by the university with the regional government of Lower Saxony, to make of gender a cross-cutting issue in research, while a new gender certificate was put in place, to be offered to students attending gender courses over their curricula.
The Middle East Technical University in Ankara (METU), operated in a fast-changing institutional and political context during this project, as resulted from the aftermath of the attempted coup of July, 2016 in Turkey. While this context has overall revealed consequential for academic freedoms, also impacting the regular governance of the University, METU, thanks to the support of the European Commission and our partnership, has nevertheless maintained the pace of EGERA activities, in line with the timeline of the project. Under the impetus of the project, references to gender equality were integrated to the Strategic Planning of METU, and EGERA charters on gender sensitive communication and gender sensitive governance are widely referred to throughout institutional documents. Moreover, a commission dedicated to dealing with sexual harassment and mobbing was established, following EGERA recommendations on fighting sexual harassment and gender-based volence, and gender training is now available on a voluntary basis to all categories of audiences at METU. Last but not least, METU has also been active in disseminating about structural change throughout the Turkish academia, assuming a leading role in establishing a network of like-minded institutions with view to share about challenges and practices. A first, nation-wide meeting of this network, integrated by close to 50 experts, was held in 2017 in Antalya. Again, provided the difficult context in which operated this partner, its significant contribution to the project, highlight the importance of EU support to implement structural changes also in times of political turmoil.
The situation at the University of Antwerp somehow contrasts with previous examples. In the flemish context, the debate over gender equality policies in the academia had been largely dominated over the past few years by the question of implementing or not gender quotas. In addition, Flemish universities often embraced a diversity agenda along with their commitments to gender equality, two agendas which seem to have only occasionaly met. Whereas the UA team provided our partnership with important contributions, such as the guidelines and tools to carry out our Gender Equality Culture surveys, it appeared less in position to fully impact the diversity policy of the university. Yet, as contact channels were being opened and alliances being built with different stakeholders within the organization, the expertise available from EGERA team members increasingly fuelled the design of new actions. This has also been supported by the EGERA charters. In 2018, the Gender Equality Plan adopted during EGERA will be updated by the Gender Equality Office.
At UVGZ (Czech Globe), joining EGERA was the result of an increasing awareness about gender inequalities in the field of climate change research. Singled out by a foreign member of the advisory board of the institution, the lack of women in senior positions was formulated as a problem to be resolved. Assisted by the gender expertise of the Institute of Sociology, its fellow member of the Czech Academy of Research, UVGZ considerably improved its knowledge of gender biases and how to deal with it. Embarked in a broader process of transformation, characterized by fast growth in terms of funding and human resources, and the move away from what it called internally a relatively « family style » management, it can be argued that Czech Globe considered actions towards gender equality as one of the vehicles of this transformation process. For that reason, gender training and awareness raising activities, as well as focus groups held over the project, proved to be of great importance for all categories of staff, to project their envisions of the future of the organization, tackling management issues and improving processes. Among other impacts, EGERA led Czech Globe to publicly communicate gender-disaggregated data for all staff categories, to incorporate gender equality in most human resources management instruments, including dedicated webpages and internal work directives. Gender equality as such was included to the portfolios of the General Secretary and Career Support agent, and the new Ethical Codex approved by 2017, includes references to gender equality. Awareness raising activities were carried out in different locations of Czech Globel accross Czech territory, and UVGZ’s commitments towards these issues, regularly reported in the newsletter of the national contact point for women in science. With regards to integrating a gender perspective in research content and despite atmospheric physics and other earth sciences present specific challenges to that respect, UVGZ hosted an important academic event on gender and climate change, held a few weeks prior to the CoP 21 conference, where a Czech Globe delegation did participate to a side event organized by France on this very subject. Among other means devised to maintain this impact in the long run, the integration of gender training in research projects applications presented by UVGZ for national and EU funding, already materialized in four successful projects.
It is worth highlighting that all partners strived to expand the outreach of EGERA activities beyond their own institutions, regularly engaging with sub-national and/or national policy stakeholders, other academic institutions, professional associations of female scientists or engineers, networks and the media. All of them did regularly participate to established networks and communities of practices around gender in research and the academia, constantly reporting about their challenges and achievements. In the case of METU, this network was even established as part of the EGERA project, with view to facilitate mutual learning and kowledge transfer. This effort carried out by each institution within its own environment, was complemented, at the level of the consortium, by an intensive dissemination policy.
III.2 Dissemination activities
Led by Vechta, WP7, devoted to dissemination, was primarily aimed at disseminating the instruments and results of actions planned through GEPs, within the consortium, and across broader academic communities at the local/regional, national and EU-levels. It was also meant to ensure the participation of core-teams’ members to academic networks and conferences over the duration of the project and to support experience sharing with other on-going EU-funded projects. This has been made possible through the early availability in the project, of a) a sounded communication plan common to our partnership, b) a well-designed, accessible website (www.egera.eu) providing regular updates on the achievements of the project and c) a graphic charter designed by a professional, providing EGERA with an easily communicable visual identity, also present on the project’s flyer, our deliverables and all our visual communication.
These efforts are also evidenced by the long list of dissemination actions, counting with 241 entries, included to this report under section 4.2 which reflects that core teams did actively communicate about EGERA towards a) their own institutions; b) the broader academia; c) students and their organizations; d) other EU-funded projects; e) policy makers/agents and f) the larger public, as shown by articles published in national daily newspapers. It should be emphasized that this already impressive dissemination record does not include most of internal dissemination actions, are those were carried out as part of the gender equality plans of each partner. Over the course of the project, EGERA dissemination activities were held in over 20 countries, including 15 out of 28 EU member states (BE, CZ, DE, ES, FI, FR, GR, IRL, IT, LT, NL, PL, PT, SE, UK), Turkey and 7 other non-European countries (Argentina, Canada, China, India, Mongolia, Uruguay and the United States).
Dissemination efforts included contributions in major international academic conferences such as the 4th Equality is not enough conference (Antwerp, 02.2015) the European Conference on Politics and Gender (ECPG, Uppsala, 06.2015) the 27th SASE conference (Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, London, 07.2015) the 9th European Conference on Gender in Higher Education and Research (Paris, September, 2016), as well as poster and oral presentations at two gender summits (EU, Brussels, 2015 and North America, Montréal, 2017). The EGERA presence was especially strong at the 9th European Conference on Gender Equality in Research and Higher Education. Held in Paris in September, 2016, in presence of both academics and non-academics (including high level policy stakeholders), this conference counted with a full EGERA panel and EGERA partners’ representatives disseminated in a number of other panels and roundtables, including during the closing event, notwithstanding the participation of the coordinating institution to the Scientific committee of the event.
Pilot studies carried out as part of EGERA to support the design and the implementation of effective actions, have received a considerable scholarly and non-scholarly attention, due to their evidenced-based content and practice-oriented orientation. This was notably the case of Anne Boring’s quantitative work on gender biases, of UAB team’s contribution to addressing resistances to bringing a gender perspective in research, or UA’s insights for measuring gender equality culture
The experience of EGERA and making structural change “political” and designing effective gender equality action plans with relatively strong accountability mechanisms, has been actively mobilized to support the design of EIGE’s and DG Research’s online GEAR tool, available to all Research Performing and Research Funding organizations across the European Research Area. This achievement is consistent with the cumulative approach of EGERA: beyond the production of its own tools and instruments, our project is committed with fuelling broader endeavours and reflections carried out at the EU level, so as to increase its outreach. A similar philosophy applies to the use of social media: EGERA partners thus prioritize the dissemination of EGERA through existing, much followed channels, rather than using solely its own social media account. As an evidence of the potential of this approach, news on gender equality disseminated by the EGERA team at Sciences Po have been regularly the most shared and commented on the social media accounts of the institution
EGERA partners have being fully using their respective networks and dissemination opportunities, to expand the outreach of the project beyond EU borders. This has been the case when participating to the UNESCO International Seminar and Women’s Education, Beijing, China, June 5-7th, 2016, to the First Forum for Open Sciences in Latin America and the Caribean (CILAC), in september 2016 in Montevideo, to the HeForShe 10X10 Impact Champions Conference in New York in September, 2016 and 2017 or to the 11th Gender Summit North America held in Montréal in November, 2017. While the participation to these high-profile, high impact events, was usually not funded by EGERA budget, it offered valuable opportunities for disseminating about the rationale of the project, the crucial importance of EU support and the results achieved.
Especially strong ties have also been built with so called « sister projects » funded under the same work programme or H2020. EGERA thus actively joined forces with EU-funded Gender Time, STAGES, INTEGER, GENOVATE, TRIGGER, GARCIA, EFFORTI, GENERA or GEECCO projects. Joint activities included joint conferences, crossed participation to ones’ respective events, training activities to the benefit of another project, interviews or participation to the design of guidelines. Held on a very regular basis, with up a dozen of activities per year, they allowed our community of practice to keep track of all tools and instruments developped as part of this cumulative efforts towards gender equality in research and the academia. Within this broader context, the relation of EGERA has been especially strong with TRIGGER, a project which had foreseen for itself a trading role among other sister projects, providing venues for mutual exchanges, as in Rome (April, 2015), London (April, 2016) or Brussels (November, 2017). Cross-EU projects activities have been pursued until the very end of EGERA, liaising with a new generation of projects as GENERA or GEECCO. Additionnally, Sciences Po and SKU embarked in two new projects as external evaluators, so as to share the knowledge gained during EGERA.
Over the last reporting period, dissemination activities from all implementing partners have further intensified, with prospect to support the sustainability of project’s commitments and achievements. Altogether, reported dissemination activities amounted to over 140 only for the last year of the project. All targeted audiences have been reached, and members of the EGERA community have been invited to present, often as guest speakers, in high-impact conferences, and to publish in high-impact journals and publishers, about the challenges, methodology and outreach of the project. This dissemination effort has been cumulative, in the sense that opportunities were pursued individually as well as collectively by all partners, to disseminate widely through other channels than those created by the project itself, and with regards to their respective, specific audiences. Communication with other EU-funded projects and EU-wide initiatives in the realm of gender and science, also remained intensive, so as contributing to create a wider community of practitioners of organizational change for gender equality in research and the academia.
Altogether, the politics of dissemination of EGERA has been one of multi-level, active involvement: partners actively contribute to regional (especially at UA, UAB and UoV), national and EU (all partners) networks. They address both STEM and non-STEM disciplines, scholar and non-scholar audiences, and policy representatives. The few selected examples below, embody the diversity of fora used for disseminating about EGERA:
EGERA-STAGES co-event, Ravenstein, the Netherlands, March 2-3, 2015.
The EGERA-STAGES co-event took place on 2 & 3 March 2015, hosted by the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands. This event brought together academic researchers, university managers, HR staff, diversity officers and other stakeholders involved in achieving structural change toward gender equality in academia. There have been lectures, discussions, working groups and a train-the-trainers workshop. The first day focused on gender equality training and started with a hands-on workshop for gender equality trainers. The central theme of the second day was the integration of gender in curricula.
Getting engaged with gender-sensitive Science, UAB, Spain, 15 and 22 May, 2015.
The “Getting engaged with gender-sensitive science” workshop took place at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) on 15th and 22nd of May 2015. The Observatory for the Equality of the UAB –along with the UAB Doctoral School- organised the second WP6 EGERA Workshop in the UAB Faculty of Science. The main objectives of this workshop were to strengthen the knowledge about gender perspective in research projects, to study the different theoretical and methodological approaches of gender in research and to facilitate the contact and discussion between research staff, expert staff and staff in training interested in “Gender Sensitive Research” and inclusive research.
Gender Mainstreaming in STEM and Global Change Sciences, Czech Globe, Czech Republic, Brno, Czech Republic, October 14 and 15, 2015.
The international conference "Gender Mainstreaming in STEM and Global Change Sciences" was held in Brno on October 14 to 15, 2015. The conference, which was held under the auspices of the President of the Academy of Sciences prof. Jiri Drahos, enjoyed a great interest. Among seventy participants there were also the scientific coordinator of the project EGERA Maxime Forest from France and representatives of other consortium members such as the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Radboud University Nijmegen, University of Vechta and Middle East Technical University.
METU participation to Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women’s Representation in Higher Education and Research, Istambul, April 18th, 2016.
On 18th of April 2016, Prof. Feride Acar and Prof. Ayşe Ayata participated in the “Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women’s Representation in Higher Education and Research” conference organized by the EU FP 7 FESTA (Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia) Project team in Turkey. FESTA is a sister project conducted by Istanbul Technical University (ITU) between January 2013 and 2017 to promote gender equality in their institution and the conference was aiming to discuss the promises of such an effort and the challenges it faced with the participation of academics and gender experts. Since METU and ITU have been in contact since 2014 in their attempts to realize structural changes in their respective institutions and have been planning further dissemination activities METU EGERA team was invited to the event and Prof. Feride Acar delivered a presentation on EGERA. The session included a presentation by Prof. Çiler Dursun, team member of GENOVATE conducted at Ankara University and enabled the three teams to discuss venues for cooperative work.
Sciences Po’s participation to the GenderInSITE Elsevier Foundation Workshop: "Integration of gender perspectives in science and technology in Higher Education: contributions to the advancement of SDG's”, FLACSO Argentina, April 2016
Held under the patronage of the UNESCO Chair Latin America for women in science, coordinated by Prof. Gloria Bonder, this seminar brought together high level experts from a variety of initiatives carried out in the North America, Latin America and Europe, to confront views and experiences about the effectiveness of gender equality policies in STEM. A manifesto is being developed as a follow-up of this seminar, which led to further dissemination opportunities.
UoV participation in the dialogue initiative “Gender justice in university governance” lead by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture, Germany, June, 2016
Equal opportunity for both genders at university, removal of barriers blocking women’s career paths – the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture, the state’s higher education association and the university gender equality officers have developed shared recommendations for action. On June 2, they were presented at the closing event of “Gender justice in university governance”, an initiative to foster dialogue. The event took place in the old town hall in Hannover. Gabriele Heinen-Kljajić, Lower Saxony minister for science and culture emphasized that „equal opportunities for women are not only a matter of gender justice but also contribute to competitiveness in attracting future generations of researchers. For universities equal opportunity is a matter of quality and thus needs to be a top-level priority. The current dialogue initiative began in June 2014. During the launch three areas for action were identified as particularly important for gender justice; they were discussed further at a series of workshops in 2015: staff development, leadership culture, and participation. For these areas there now are eight recommendations for action intended to promote gender justice in staff development, strengthen gender-sensitive leadership, get more women into leadership positions, and eliminate the gender pay gap.
Sciences Po’s participation to HeforShe Event, 10X10 Impact Champions, New York, Sept. 2016 and 2017
Although not directly connected to EGERA, this event was a key moment for disseminating and communicating about Sciences Po’s commitments and actions towards gender equality. After joining the campaign in 2015 on the basis of our (EGERA) GEP, hosting two HeforShe events respectively in October, 2015 and June, 2016, and participating to the first HeforShe Event 10X10 Impact Champions held in New York in September, 2016, our Director Frédéric Mion was invited to provide in September, 2017 a contribution bringing further evidences of Sciences Po’s commitment on gender equality and explicitly referring to EGERA as a spur. This event received massive media attention worldwide and at Sciences Po. Please note that this event was not funded by EGERA. The full Impact champions report, including Sciences Po’s report, is available here.
Sciences Po’s participation as guest speaker to the 11th Gender Summit North America, session IV « Best Practices: Global Perspectives on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in STEM». Sheraton Center, Montréal, Nov. 2017
Gender summits are the main venue to address the challenges of women’s participation, retention and promotion in STEM from a global perspective. Hence, the invitation to participate as guest speaker formulated to our Scientific supervisor, was a great opportunity to communicate about the achievements and outputs of EGERA. This was done to a large audience comprising of 240 senior policy stakeholders, including ministers at the levels of Canada and Québec, university deans and senior scholars as Londa Schiebinger. Maxime Forest also participated to the award ceremony of the L’Oréal Prize for women scientists held as part of the conference. All pictures and videos of the conference are available here.
UAB Participation at the UniTWIN Network Seminar on Gender and ICT’s, April 25-28th, organized by RMIT and UNAM Mexico, Barcelona, April 25-28, 2017.
Participation at the UniTWIN UNESCO meeting in Barcelona. Joana Gallego participated in the meeting and spoke about the EGERA project during the seminar. The UNESCO UniTWIN Network on Gender, Media and ICTs (the acronym stands for University Twinning and Networking Programme) aims to advance research training and program development in UNESCO’s fields of competence by building university networks and encouraging co-operation between gender, media and ICT scholars. For four days, the members of UNAM (Mexico), RMIT (Melbourne, Australia) UNIVE (Dominican Republic), Complutense University in Madrid, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, the University of Padua (Italy) and of other universities via Skype, debated key strategies for promoting gender equality in and through the media, and on a global scale through research and education. They also established a framework for collaboration, the development of strategies for a funding plan, devising a four-year global plan of activities, designing a research program and an education program for the next few years. Tim Francis, from UNESCO-Paris was invited to the seminar and presented the guide on Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media.
METU’s EGERA Workshop: Gender Equality in Academia: Objectives, Achievements and Resistances, Antalya, Turkey, Nov. 6-8, 2017. This was a nation-wide experience exchange workshop, participated by 49 members of different higher education institutions working in women and gender studies, centers and departments in Turkey and by 5 members from Turkish National Commission, Gender Equality Committee for UNESCO. METU organized the event to share experiences and accumulated knowledge in EGERA and to create a platform where discuss issues of gender equality, resistances and threats to the measures and actions taken on that matter and possibilities of collective work to realize the aim of gender equality.
Although NOT a research project, but a coordination action aiming at generating structural changes in research performing organization, EGERA did generate a substantial amount of scholarly publications, of which some can be considered groundbreaking. Those include the already mentioned chapter on incorporating gender and diversity in Robert Dingwall and Mary B. MacDonnell’s (eds) SAGE Handbook of research management (2015) and Bustelo, Ferguson and Forest co-edited volume, including Viviane Albenga’s chapter “Between knowledge and power: triggering structural change for gender equality from inside in higher education institutions” In Maria Bustelo, Lucy Ferguson and Maxime Forest (eds.). The Politics of Feminist Knowledge Transfer: A Critical Reflection on Gender Training and Gender Expertise, London, Palgrave, 2016
Anne Boring’s pioneering works on gender biases in professors’ evaluation by students, as well as students’ choices of international mobility or curricula, yet received an even greater scholarly attention. Her article co-authored with Kellie Ottoboni and Phillip B. Stark, published in open access by Scienceopen.com was read over 52,600 times. Based on a robust statistical analysis, partly gathered as part of the EGERA project, her work also found is way in the prestigious Journal of Public Economics (145, 2017, 27-41). It was also published in form of a chapter on “Student Biases for Male Professors in Student Evaluations of Teachers: What Consequences for Female professors?” in Gender and Education from Different Angles, Jarecka-Zyluk & Holz (eds.). 2014. LIT Verlag: Munich. pp. 71-79.
Far from remaining within the relatively seclude circle of the academia, Anne Boring’s insights regarding gender biases in professors’ evaluation, also triggered a considerable amount of attention in non-scholarly press, with about two dozens of articles published in five countries (Australia, France, the UK, the US and Poland), including in prestigious Time Higher Education (UK), Inside Higher Education (US) or Le Monde. This brings the record of EGERA related publications in the popular press to about 30. In the vast majority of these articles, both the content of the project and the support of the European Commission, were duly mentioned. Publication plans of respective partners for 2018 indicate at least 8 additional potential scholarly publications derived from EGERA, including two PhD degrees.
List of Websites:
www.egera.eu
EGERA project Coordinator: helene.perivier@sciencespo.fr
EGERA Scientific Supervisor: maxime.forest@sciencespo.fr