Author: RI Peers

Today, the R&I PEERS project released Deliverable 6.2 of the project, a report on gender equality best practices that aims at identifying best practices related to gender equality in research organisations, targeting all types of functions and stages of a research career, from starting to management and decision-level.

The review has  focused on practices functional to the R&I PEERS project, in order to be useful for the R&I PEERS piloting organisations to improve their organisational policies and adequate better their strategies for achieving gender balance.

The findings have been clustered and collected following the taxonomy of strategies and indicators identified in previous reports, D3.2 and D3.3, respectively. The present research has also been built around the concrete targets and preliminary priorities identified by our piloting partners, which were collected extensively in Deliverable 3.1 “Analysis of Country Guidelines”, and briefly compiled below:

1. Work-life balance
2. Mentoring
3. Gender dimension in research and curricula
4. Gender balance within the organisation (in committees, research teams, job offering and recruitment panels, decision-making bodies, high management teams)
5. Gender sensitive language in organisation’s documents
6. Female researchers’/staff career and excellence (and career progression)
7. Raising awareness of gender equality within organisations

These seven preliminary priorities have been taken into full consideration in the selection and analysis of the existing practices and gender policies.

For more information about this and other R&I PEERS reports, please visit here or contact the R&I PEERS project coordinator.

Today, the R&I PEERS project released Deliverable 3.3 of the project, a report that aims at “making operative” the activities undertaken in previous stages of the project. In particular, the report provides R&I PEERS piloting partners with two tools aimed at collecting gender relevant data for both planning and monitoring the implementation of their customised Gender Equality Plans (GEPs), i.e. their specific institutional targets and strategies. The two proposed tools are:

1. The “Template for data Collection” which is a methodology for data collection; and
2. The “R&I PEERS Fields of Actions and Indicators”, which are gender equality indicators and measures.

The definition of a sounding methodology, to design and implement GEPs based on evidences from institutional data, along with the adoption of a strong set of indicators, to monitor the implemented measures and their impacts, have been acknowledged by EIGE as crucial elements to ensure gender equality in academic and higher education organisations, as well as research performing and research funding organisations (EIGE, 2016A). As the piloting organisations taking part in the R&I PEERS project are of that nature, the methods and tools proposed in this report are aligned with those recommended by EIGE.

This report has been written as a tool to aid our piloting partners in their task of achieving the three main targets of ERA (European Research Area) stated in the EC’s document Guidance, i.e. facilitating the implementation of targets to promote gender equality in research and innovation. The overarching targets are: Equality in scientific careers, gender balance in decision-making bodies and positions, and gender dimension in research & innovation content. Based on these three overarching targets, the R&I project piloting partners have built a list of more concrete targets or preliminary priorities which have been outlined in Deliverable 3.1 “Analysis of Country Guidelines” and are also compiled below:

1. Raising awareness of gender equality within organisations
2. Gender dimension in research and curricula
3. Gender balance (in committees, research teams, job recruitment panels, and career progression)
4. Work-life balance
5. Mentoring
6. Gender sensitive language in organisation’s documents
7. Female researchers’/staff career and excellence

These seven preliminary priorities have been taken into full consideration in the design of the two tools presented in this report and further introduced below.

Two tools for data collection

Methodology: “Template for data Collection”
The methodology proposed in this report, the “Template for data Collection”, is a framework to collect sex-disaggregated data from secondary sources, such as administrative databases and human resources department information systems, about the following “field of action” within our piloting organisations: Demographics, education and qualification, career path, work organisation and research outputs. For each “field of action” a number of variables are proposed along with descriptions, examples and relevant classifications.

This tool is intended to be used by our piloting organisations as a reference to measure the different dimensions of gender equality in their respective academic and higher education organisations, research performing organisations and research funding organisations. This tool has also been conceived as a baseline to develop GEPs. In particular the “Template for data Collection” serves to collect sex-disaggregated data for what EIGE defines the “Diagnosis Phase” or the characterisation of the current status regarding gender equality in the GEP development process within an organisation.

Indicators and measures: “R&I PEERS Fields of Actions and Indicators”
The “R&I PEERS Fields of Actions and Indicators” tool proposes a translation of the seven identified gender equality target areas (see list § 2.1) by piloting organisations into empirical measures, and link those to a subsequent list of indicators to state their impact.

Moreover, for each of the seven preidentified target areas, a number of specific dimensions are also defined. Those dimensions are, in turn, linked with the data collection methods suggested by the “Template for data collection” tool to harvest the relevant data within the organisation, and with a plausible list of indicators and measures to be implemented to make GEPs effective. To ease the reading and the use of the “R&I PEERS Fields of Actions and Indicators”, each target area is visualised in a diagram that also presents the corresponding dimensions and the relative indicators schematically (see § 7).

Further resources
Along with the two main tools described above, the report offers an outlook on the use of statistical indicators in the evaluation of policies for human resources in science and technology. In addition, a review of existing tools to target gender equality, most of which were produced in the framework of other EU-funded projects, is provided with direct links to relevant information in order to valorise the knowledge produced by those projects, exploit their results and facilitate and enrich the activities of the R&I PEERS Consortium.

Furthermore, to be further inspired and learn from others’ experiences, a number of concrete examples of measures already in place in EU academic and higher education organisations, RPOs and RFOs is also presented. Each experience is briefly described, and the relative web link is provided to facilitate obtaining further information and reference.

Finally, the report presents an additional resource section along with the reference of resources cited in the text.

For more information about this and other R&I PEERS reports, please visit here or contact the R&I PEERS project coordinator.

Today, the R&I PEERS project released Deliverable 3.2 of the project, a report that aims at proposing potential and concrete strategies and actions for the preliminary customised Gender Equality Plans’ target areas predefined by each piloting partners. The strategies are proposed after the following two studies:

1. A critical analysis of the work carried out on deliverable D3.1 Analysis of Country Guidelines by each piloting organisation ; and
2. The collection, analysis and integration of employees views, perceptions and needs, harvested through an anonymous online questionnaire at each piloting organisation.

The strategies and actions proposed should be considered carefully by piloting partners and assessed according to their feasibility and correspondence to the actual needs of their organisation members. 
Preliminary target areas defined in D3.1 for each piloting organisation were aligned with survey results in order to assess their relevance for employees. Most of preliminary target areas were found relevant by survey respondents in piloting organisations. Within these target areas, some specific measures were pointed out as highly relevant by survey responses. These specific measures or actions have been included into proposals of strategies for each partner. For several piloting partner organisations, the survey has shown that employees identified as relevant additional target areas that had not been considered in the preliminary definitions of GEPs for D3.1.

These target areas are added to the existing ones, and specific strategies have been proposed for each. 
This report proposes lists of strategies for each piloting organisation GEP, organised under GEP target areas. The proposed strategies are either survey oriented, aiming at providing additional evidence for justification of planned measures, or sustainability oriented, resulting in a sustainable structural change. Sustainability oriented strategies usually mobilise various stake-holders and result in competence development and improving status quo.

This report also brings suggestions for strategies for innovation actions to improve GEP implementation, as well as a list of references to existing tools, experiences from already completed projects and insights from different institutional and national contexts for all GEP target areas and accompanying strategies.

For more information about this and other R&I PEERS reports, please visit here or contact the R&I PEERS project coordinator.

Today, the R&I PEERS project released Deliverable 3.1 of the project, a report that provides an analysis of the framework variables (cultural, legislative, political, economic) in project partner countries (Italy, Spain, Israel, Cyprus, Slovenia, Tunisia, and Greece)  that may affect gender equality-related issues in piloting organisations, and that evaluates each research-performing and research-funding organisation piloting GEPs against national and ERA guidelines.

In the report, the GEP target areas defined by piloting partners address several national framework variables – legislative, cultural, economic, and political ones, covering the following broader fields:

1. Mentoring
2. Female researchers’ staff career and excellence
3. Work-life balance
4. Gender balance in committees, researchers, job offering and recruitment
5. Gender dimension in research and curricula
6. Improving use of gender-sensitive language in organization’s documents
7. Raising awareness of gender equality within the organisation

Most of the GEP target areas result from detecting a gap – between what is prescribed by legislation and what exists in practice (as a consequence of unequal access, prevalent stereotypes, institutional cultures, etc.), and between what countries commit to with regard to gender equality in policy documents and resolutions and what they really do in order to fulfil their commitments. 
Target areas defined for each GEP also address gender equality related issues and discrepancies that easily escape legislative regulations – practices stemming from organisational cultures, differences in professional behaviour of women and men, hidden forms of sexism and harassment, etc.

Finally, several target areas in piloting organisations’ GEPs aim at making a step forward from what is prescribed in the existing legislature, taking into account issues recognised by research community and civil society members, as well as at responding to the needs of employees of piloting RPOs and RFOs.
Recommendations outlined in the European Research Area Guidelines to promote gender equality in research and innovation are generally relevant for the piloting organisations and for the definition of their GEP target areas. They either help achieving goals set in the GEP target areas or point towards gaps which tend to occur between adopted policies to promote gender equality measures, and the lack of implementation of such measures in practice.

For more information about this and other R&I PEERS reports, please visit here or contact the R&I PEERS project coordinator.