TARGETED-MPI aimed at addressing gender inequality in Business and Management (B&M) schools through the development and effective implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs). The complex and multidisciplinary nature of B&M schools constitutes an important academic and research site to examine GE. The specific objectives were:
-Increasing women's participation in Research and Innovation (R&I) in B&M Schools and the Higher Education (HE) sector
-Enhancing gender balance in decision-making processes and governing bodies of research organizations, including equal representation on boards, committees, and leadership roles
-Incorporating gender dimension in R&I ensuring that the research agenda reflects diverse perspectives
-Addressing knowledge and research gaps to advance the State-of-the-Art (SoA) in GE debates
-Disseminating and sharing its findings and practices with the broader community of European and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) B&M schools
TARGETED-MPI, after 4 years of impactful implementation, has addressed gender inequalities in 5 B&M schools in GR, SE, BE, UK & LB. TARGETED-MPI employed a participatory, action-oriented iterative framework for the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the GEPs grounded on a comprehensive SoA & State-of-Practice (SoP) review associated with GE issues, shedding light on the contextual factors affecting the actual deployment and monitoring of GEPs in Partner Institutions. The objectives were addressed throughout the implementation of TARGETED-MPI GEPs which are the main instruments underpinning structural changes in the partner institutions.
The implemented GEPs include actions on a variety of GE issues such as:
-Fostering GE in research/academic careers: partners delivered GE training for inclusive and bias free HR processes, reduced workload for researchers/academics with care duties, adopted hybrid models of work, established mentoring plans for faculty members and used gender inclusive language in the official documents
-Promoting gender balance in decision-making: partners actively promoted women's role models and implemented supportive measures to enhance gender balance in leadership positions. As a result, most of the partners improved women’s representation in leadership positions
-Integrating the gender dimension in R&I content: partners introduced GE topics in curricula and delivered GE trainings addressed to internal and external researchers/academics
-Addressing knowledge and research gaps to advance the state of the art in GE debates: the project includes open access deliverables, scientific publications, and conference papers on GE topics
-Disseminating and sharing its findings and practices: partners attended and participated in national and international events where they gave lectures and presentations advocating for GE, such as the Academy of Management Annual Conference (AoM), the Careers Division Conference (CarCon), and other MENA webinar series. TARGETED-MPI Partners organized more than 20 events, produced flyers, videos, podcasts, published blogposts and articles in university websites, newspapers and magazines and external press.
