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Women In Research and higher EDucation

Project description

Studying the gender balance in science

More women today are choosing a career in research, but they remain significantly underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics – STEM. Their potential is also not fully recognised. The EU-funded WIRED project will identify the gender inequalities in academia by focusing on the reasons why and the mechanisms through which women are at a disadvantage in career progression or why they drop out from the academic labour market. Comparative, interdisciplinary multi-model and multilevel research will be conducted. Observational field data will also be collected from administrative and web-based data sources. A survey will be sent to a sample of professors in targeted Italian and Swiss universities. The findings will offer micro, meso and macro levels of explanation of gender differences in career progression in academia and science.

Objective

Over the last years, women have made a significant progress in academia and science across all Europe. Yet, their representation across scientific fields and ranks remains uneven, as they are still under-represented in some STEM disciplines (science technology engineering and mathematics) and in senior positions. The WIRED project – Women In Research and higher EDucation – aims at investigating gender inequalities in academia by focusing on the reasons why and the mechanisms through which women are at disadvantage in the career progression and/or they drop-out from the academic labour market. It will undertake this challenge by means of an innovative, comparative, inter-disciplinary, multi-model and multi-level research. WIRED draws its originality from its unique data, which are the result of the combination of observational longitudinal micro-data on the Swiss and Italian academic populations with experimental data on gender discrimination in the selection processes. The observational field will be based on different administrative and web-based data sources, including the micro data on academics held by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research and by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, where the fieldwork will be undertaken. The experimental research is based on a vignette survey which will be submitted to a sample of professors in targeted Italian and Swiss Universities, chosen on the base of the results of the first part of the research. The combination of these two methods within a comparative approach will provide an extremely rich and comprehensive understanding of gender differences in academic career trajectories allowing to simultaneously shed light on the micro, meso and macro levels of explanation. Face to the scarcity of comparative and longitudinal insights, WIRED will represent a tremendous step forward in the debate on women in academia and science.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019

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Coordinator

UNIVERSITE DE LAUSANNE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 191 149,44
Address
QUARTIER UNIL CENTRE - BATIMENT UNICENTRE
1015 LAUSANNE
Switzerland

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Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Vaud
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 191 149,44
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