How can research funders help to eliminate obstacles to gender equality in higher education institutions?

1. How can research funders help to eliminate
obstacles to gender equality in higher education
institutions?
“This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme under grant agreement No 741128”. This presentation
reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.”
22 March 2021

2. GENDER BALANCE AMONG RESEARCHERS
AND IN ACADEMIC STAFF
What can be done by research funders to
increase gender balance?
Jana Dvorackova (jana.dvorackova@tacr.cz)
Technology Agency of the Czech Republic

3. RFOs can promote gender balance among researchers and in the
academic staff in a significant measure. They can:
• Stimulate changes by setting standards and rules for grant
applicants – both institutions and individuals
• Ensure fair distribution of funding
– there is a persistent gender gap in the success rates
– various studies point to gender biases in evaluation
– if efforts are made by RFOs to support the best projects and to
mitigate gender and other biases in the evaluation of research
proposals, the competitive funding may have a certain emancipatory
effect – provide (otherwise disadvantaged) individuals with an
opportunity to disentangle from the sedimented power relations in
their institutions
2 LEVELS OF SUPPORT

4. • Gender balance in research teams as a ranking factor used to
prioritize the proposals with the same scores
• Gender balance of the team as part of the evaluation of
proposal
• Special funding programmes for women
– often aimed at women at the start of their careers
– or targeted at senior academics to enable them to apply for
professorships
– or target women in fields where they are underrepresented (STEM
fields)
DIRECT MEASURES

5. Promoting gender sensitivity in the evaluation process
Elimination of gender bias
• Awareness-raising activities for evaluators
• Gender-sensitive evaluation criteria and their formulation
• Clear and consistently applied criteria
• Blinding of applications
Considering a wider spectrum of research outputs
• Outputs produced by women and men differ to some extent.
• Research output types that are usually regarded as the best indicators of
performance and excellence better answer to research outputs produced by
men.
• RFOs should not focus only on publications in prestigious journals, but also
consider other outputs as valuable – books, book chapters, textbooks or
outputs which aim to impact policy and practice.
INDIRECT MEASURES

6. Accounting for career breaks
Considering periods of leave for family care in career evaluations
"Special circumstances section" in grant applications, where candidates can
state any events that explain their gaps in research productivity.
Extension of eligibility windows in programmes with age or time limits

7. Gender-sensitive practices related to parenthood
• Postponement of the beginning of a grant in case of pregnancy
• Interruption and/or extension of the project
• Additional funding for substitute staff employment
• Supplements to general parental benefits or contributions for child care
• Return grants
Incentives to structural change
• Positive motivation – specific grants for institutions, extra points for
proposals from institutions implementing GEPs (or similar activities), extra
money…
• Requirements – GEPs as an eligibility criterion (or the Athena SWAN
award).

8. Promoting gender equality in the evaluation process: Guideline for jury
members, reviewers and research funding organizations’ employees
http://www.geecco-
project.eu/fileadmin/t/geecco/geecco/material/GEECCO_Guideline_for_jury_members__reviewers_and_research_funding_organ
izations__employees.pdf
Best practice examples of gender mainstreaming in research funding
organizations
http://www.geecco-project.eu/fileadmin/t/geecco/geecco/GEECCO_report_best_practice.pdf
Relevant GEECCO resources

9. Thank you