Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TARGETED-MPI (Transparent And Resilient Gender Equality Through Integrated Monitoring Planning and Implementation)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-12-01 do 2023-02-28
Women are underrepresented in all disciplines and all levels of academia, especially at professorial level, senior leadership roles and gatekeeping positions. Academics in Business and Management (B&M) schools come from a variety of disciplines including STEMM, social sciences, arts and humanities, different intellectual traditions, approaches to understanding and methods for creating new knowledge, organisational socialisation practices, ways of work, and perspectives of the world. Such diversity poses complex challenges in ensuring Gender Equality (GE) in B&M schools. The complex nature and multi-disciplinarity of B&M schools is an important research site to examine GE.
B&M schools also influence global GE practice by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including industry leaders, policymakers and public and government bodies, preparing the next generation of gender-aware managers and leaders and building the organisational capacity of high performing and impactful research organisations. The development and implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) in B&M schools is vital for society; if they do not understand their own processes, culture and consequences, how can they effectively influence the wider society they serve and address the needs of a diverse global society?
TARGETED-MPI’s overarching objective is to tackle gender inequality in B&M schools through the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of GEPs. TARGETED-MPI GEPs constitute tools for structural change in the partner institutions, underpinning the achievement of following objectives:
- Foster GE in research/academic careers
- Ensure gender balance in decision-making processes and bodies
- Integrate the gender dimension in research and innovation content.
TARGETED-MPI also aims to:
- Address knowledge and research gaps to advance the state of the art in GE debates
- Disseminate its findings and practices to the broader community of B&M schools in Europe, Middle East and North Africa.
B&M schools also influence global GE practice by engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including industry leaders, policymakers and public and government bodies, preparing the next generation of gender-aware managers and leaders and building the organisational capacity of high performing and impactful research organisations. The development and implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) in B&M schools is vital for society; if they do not understand their own processes, culture and consequences, how can they effectively influence the wider society they serve and address the needs of a diverse global society?
TARGETED-MPI’s overarching objective is to tackle gender inequality in B&M schools through the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of GEPs. TARGETED-MPI GEPs constitute tools for structural change in the partner institutions, underpinning the achievement of following objectives:
- Foster GE in research/academic careers
- Ensure gender balance in decision-making processes and bodies
- Integrate the gender dimension in research and innovation content.
TARGETED-MPI also aims to:
- Address knowledge and research gaps to advance the state of the art in GE debates
- Disseminate its findings and practices to the broader community of B&M schools in Europe, Middle East and North Africa.
TARGETED-MPI employs a participatory, action-based, iterative framework to develop partners’ GEPs. GEPs are developed in two phases each including development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The evaluation of the 1st Phase GEPs provides feedback for developing the 2nd Phase GEPs.
TARGETED-MPI reviewed and synthesised the State of the Art (SoA) and State of Practice (SoP) on GE in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (WP2). The synthesis suggests that HEIs should pay attention to the gap between policy articulation at national level and implementation at institutional level, develop bespoke GEPs that consider their operating environment and maturity in policy development and implementation and consider GE enablers such as awareness raising, top management commitment and GE data availability, definition and accessibility for developing evidence-based, data-driven GEPs. The SoA review and synthesis led to the development of a multilayer conceptual model for identifying and classifying the factors that negatively affect GE in academia and act as barriers against the creation of a gender-balanced academic working environment. In line with its action-based approach the project organised a workshop to elicit stakeholder views on development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of GEPs in academia (WP3). Based on the WP2 outputs, WP3 produced an integrated methodology for developing GEPs, templates (Cultural Web, GEP Development, Feasibility) and guidelines. Using the methodology partners collected and analysed focus group and interview data to identify GE issues in their organisations and produced bespoke 1st Phase GEPs. Common elements of the GEPs include work-life balance, awareness raising and career development; the bespoke GEPs include additional context-specific actions for each institution.
In implementing their GEPs (WP4) partners identified barriers and enablers. Barriers include low GE awareness, gaps between GE policy and practice, resistance to collaborate and change by people in gatekeeping and middle management positions and bureaucratic organisational processes that slow down GEP implementation. Enablers include top management support and commitment, effective communication of GE policies, involvement of senior academics with GE expertise and internal stakeholders, resource availability, external pressures (e.g. the EC requirement to have GEPs in place for participating in EC-funded projects) and awareness-raising.
The 1st Phase GEPs evaluation (WP5) showed that partners have different states of play in their GEP implementation. All partners implemented actions related to human resource management and communication, such as policies considering caring needs of teaching staff in course timetabling, hybrid models of work, mentoring plans for faculty members and awareness-raising events. The implemented GEPs also include actions on a variety of GE issues such as structures facilitating GE mainstreaming, gender-disaggregated data and female leadership roles.
TARGETED-MPI produced 2 Policy Briefs (PB) on the management of data for GEP planning, development, implementation and monitoring in HEIs, and GEP implementation in B&M schools. Key PB1 recommendations include: collection by HEIs of GE data that support the GE planning lifecycle, provision of appropriate data definitions and specifications and integration of GE data management activities in a single-stop shop. PB2 recommends that for effective GEP implementation B&M schools should: establish a body to coordinate GE planning, implementation and monitoring across the institution, introduce early awareness-raising activities and a GE communication plan, commit adequate resources, involve internal stakeholders throughout the GEP lifecycle, develop and implement GE data management systems and participate in GE networks.
Project results were disseminated (WP6) to the scientific and professional communities and society at large. Notable highlights include the organisation of two Symposia and one PDW at AoM 2022 and of a PDW at BAM 2022, and participation in the Final GLOMO Project Conference.
TARGETED-MPI reviewed and synthesised the State of the Art (SoA) and State of Practice (SoP) on GE in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) (WP2). The synthesis suggests that HEIs should pay attention to the gap between policy articulation at national level and implementation at institutional level, develop bespoke GEPs that consider their operating environment and maturity in policy development and implementation and consider GE enablers such as awareness raising, top management commitment and GE data availability, definition and accessibility for developing evidence-based, data-driven GEPs. The SoA review and synthesis led to the development of a multilayer conceptual model for identifying and classifying the factors that negatively affect GE in academia and act as barriers against the creation of a gender-balanced academic working environment. In line with its action-based approach the project organised a workshop to elicit stakeholder views on development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of GEPs in academia (WP3). Based on the WP2 outputs, WP3 produced an integrated methodology for developing GEPs, templates (Cultural Web, GEP Development, Feasibility) and guidelines. Using the methodology partners collected and analysed focus group and interview data to identify GE issues in their organisations and produced bespoke 1st Phase GEPs. Common elements of the GEPs include work-life balance, awareness raising and career development; the bespoke GEPs include additional context-specific actions for each institution.
In implementing their GEPs (WP4) partners identified barriers and enablers. Barriers include low GE awareness, gaps between GE policy and practice, resistance to collaborate and change by people in gatekeeping and middle management positions and bureaucratic organisational processes that slow down GEP implementation. Enablers include top management support and commitment, effective communication of GE policies, involvement of senior academics with GE expertise and internal stakeholders, resource availability, external pressures (e.g. the EC requirement to have GEPs in place for participating in EC-funded projects) and awareness-raising.
The 1st Phase GEPs evaluation (WP5) showed that partners have different states of play in their GEP implementation. All partners implemented actions related to human resource management and communication, such as policies considering caring needs of teaching staff in course timetabling, hybrid models of work, mentoring plans for faculty members and awareness-raising events. The implemented GEPs also include actions on a variety of GE issues such as structures facilitating GE mainstreaming, gender-disaggregated data and female leadership roles.
TARGETED-MPI produced 2 Policy Briefs (PB) on the management of data for GEP planning, development, implementation and monitoring in HEIs, and GEP implementation in B&M schools. Key PB1 recommendations include: collection by HEIs of GE data that support the GE planning lifecycle, provision of appropriate data definitions and specifications and integration of GE data management activities in a single-stop shop. PB2 recommends that for effective GEP implementation B&M schools should: establish a body to coordinate GE planning, implementation and monitoring across the institution, introduce early awareness-raising activities and a GE communication plan, commit adequate resources, involve internal stakeholders throughout the GEP lifecycle, develop and implement GE data management systems and participate in GE networks.
Project results were disseminated (WP6) to the scientific and professional communities and society at large. Notable highlights include the organisation of two Symposia and one PDW at AoM 2022 and of a PDW at BAM 2022, and participation in the Final GLOMO Project Conference.
TARGETED-MPI adapted the Cultural Web as a gender-aware diagnostic tool that helps reveal deeper, implicit issues of how inequality is embedded in structures, processes, practices and systems, providing input for developing bespoke context-specific GEPs and developed a collaborative action-based research that engages stakeholders to challenge and question taken-for-granted assumptions and practices on gender inequality. Moreover, TARGETED-MPI developed a multi-layer conceptual model for identifying and classifying factors affecting GE in HEIs that supports the systematic development of GEPs through the association of GE issues and actions.
The implementation of 1st Phase GEPs has created an impact on partner institutions by introducing changes in their organisational processes and practices and raising the GE awareness of internal stakeholders. Examples of actions that have brought such change are reported in the previous section. The awareness-raising activities had an impact in promoting GE and the GEPs to internal stakeholders and increasing GE acceptability.
Finally, the TARGETED-MPI research and implementation provides policy recommendations to HEIs, including B&M schools, on GEP planning, development, implementation and monitoring and the management of data needed for these activities.
The implementation of 1st Phase GEPs has created an impact on partner institutions by introducing changes in their organisational processes and practices and raising the GE awareness of internal stakeholders. Examples of actions that have brought such change are reported in the previous section. The awareness-raising activities had an impact in promoting GE and the GEPs to internal stakeholders and increasing GE acceptability.
Finally, the TARGETED-MPI research and implementation provides policy recommendations to HEIs, including B&M schools, on GEP planning, development, implementation and monitoring and the management of data needed for these activities.