E-learning training modules on gender equality for R+D+I financing activities

The Spanish State Research Agency has issued a series of e-learning training modules on different aspects of gender equality in R+D+I, developed in collaboration with the Women and Science Unit of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, as part of the actions foreseen in the I Gender Equality Plan of the Agency 2021-2023.

Visit the page on the website of the Spanish State Research Agency: E-learning training modules on different aspects of gender equality in R+D+I, for R+D+I financing activities

Visit the section dedicated to training resources on the website of the Spanish Ministry of Science and innovation: Recursos didácticos 

Here is the full list of video trainings (in Spanish language, with self-generated English captions):

2022-05-26T16:25:37+02:00May 26th, 2022|Tags: , , |

What comes next? Sustainability of structural change for gender equality after SUPERA

By María Bustelo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid and SUPERA Coordinator

SUPERA is finally coming to an end after four years of being working together. It seems quite far away now those days in early June of 2018 of the kick-off meeting. As I said in the opening of our Final Conference in Madrid last March 25th, looking back now, what four years! We can definitively say that it has been a long and winding road. Throughout this four-year period, quite intensively during the first 18 months of the project life, we faced important institutional and political changes in all our implementing partners. And the pandemic precisely caught us about to hit the midst of the project when we were just finishing the take-off and reaching the cruising speed. All these circumstances made us be constantly adapting our strategies, interventions and change processes to the different contexts, and they also made us highly resilient.

But all in all, SUPERA has also been, beyond an enormous challenge, a fabulous adventure, full of efforts, achievements, and inspiring practices of which we are proud. It has also represented the best of working together, supporting each other, strengthening previous and establishing new professional bonds, which I am sure, will last well beyond the end of SUPERA.

The SUPERA consortium resulted a balanced formula of Research Performing Organizations (RPOs), in this case, four universities, and two very different Research Funding Organisations (RFOs), as we understood from the beginning that gender+ structural change should also be enhanced by how research money is distributed. Although with different logics and being respectful of our different idiosyncrasies, we have had excellent exchanges, used synergies, and learnt a lot from each other. The other wise choice of the SUPERA consortium was to count on two excellent supporting partners, one, Yellow Window, for training and guiding us through innovative methodologies and resources, and Science Po, as an embedded formative evaluator providing soundly continuous feedback to the implementing partners. For me, it has been a pleasure and an honour to coordinate this excellent consortium.

So, what comes next? How does SUPERA ensure sustainability? Sustainability has been one of the four core principles with which SUPERA was designed and developed. But the other three: cumulativeness, innovation and inclusiveness also contribute significantly to the sustainability of the project.

The first principle we wanted to observe from the design and inception of the project was cumulativeness. It was about taking advantage of what was already there, not trying to reinvent the wheel. Therefore, SUPERA was drawn upon tools & instruments already experimented and evaluated by other experiences and structural change projects. Moreover, throughout the project, we have continuously exchanged with other sister projects, encouraging, and participating in joint initiatives and campaigns, common seminars, and webinars. This has been facilitated by the fact that several partners in the SUPERA consortium participated in other past projects, and the others will continue to contribute to future ones. And SUPERA leaves several materials, methodologies developed, and documented inspiring practices that will contribute to this common European legacy.

The second principle, that one of innovation, made us develop innovative implementation structures using transformation design techniques, as Gender Equality Hubs and Gender Equality Fab Labs, which were thought for designing, prototyping, and testing affordable and innovative policy solutions to gender bias and imbalances identified through gender audits and diagnoses. Gender Equality Hubs, adapted to each institutional context, have been the most important key actors for launching and enhancing gender structural change processes at SUPERA implementing institutions. Gender Equality Fab Labs have also been an interesting and useful resource, which was used productively in different formats and for various topics by all partners. What we learnt from the SUPERA experience is that the initial diagnoses that were planned and successfully performed during the first year of the project, were also needed to be monitored in a continuous manner throughout the project. The reasons for that are the invisible and many times difficult-to-grasp character of gender+ inequalities, as well as all the confronted political, institutional, and global changes (pandemic included). This need of constant and updated information strongly incentivized us to prioritize, from the beginning, the promotion of sustainable and stable gender management information systems.

The third principle, inclusiveness, is at the core of our methodology and has strongly defined the SUPERA spirit. It means that we are absolutely convinced that the only way for reaching a real structural change is through the involvement of the entire research & university communities. Therefore, in SUPERA we have emphasised the importance of using participatory techniques and active stakeholders’ involvement, as this really increases their support to change processes and helps to reduce resistances. This conviction alludes also to the need of reaching everyone in the community, including men and all genders, without requiring the feminist or gender expert “card” to entry the club: the real sustainable change starts when non previously gender advocates become gender+ allies and change agents. And after four years we can say that we are very proud as, beyond the core teams, the SUPERA communities in partners’ institution are huge and diverse.

Coming back to the fourth SUPERA core principle, sustainability, from the beginning of the project we committed to design, implement, and evaluate interventions whose results have chances to endure over time producing gender structural change in our institutions. For securing this sustainable institutional change, we have done efforts towards project top management endorsement apart from the visibility of actions in our institutions, and the inclusive long-term involvement promotion explained above.

Another hard-won lesson learned from SUPERA is that the necessary top management commitment and endorsement should be always combined with bottom-up approaches from the communities. These last ones are so important that, if already started, they can remain being the change driving force when the first one disappears, or that well combined with adequate institutional political will, they can have amazing multiplying results. In all partners institutions, most of the participatory structures and networks created by SUPERA will remain in place and keep on being important change drivers. This is the case of the Gender Equality Nodes network at UCM, with representatives in all the 26 UCM Faculties, which has been increasingly active in gender promotion activities at the UCM towards the end of the project. For instance, as a result of a Conference on how to integrate a gender perspective in teaching organized by this Network with SUPERA support, an edited guide with recommendations for integrating gender in the areas of STEM, Social Sciences, Health Sciences and Art & Humanities will be released at the UCM very soon. But even going beyond SUPERA, this Network promotes a true interdisciplinary approach to gender by participating together in an innovative gender-sensitive pedagogical project and in another one for studying classroom student participation for the UCM Student Observatory. No project team at the UCM had ever covered so many faculties and areas before.

SUPERA also leaves concrete outputs, as for example, the already disseminated the Tailor-mage guides for gender-sensitive communication in research and academia, highlighted as a key good practice in the field in the newly updated version of the GEAR (Gender Equality in Academia and Research) online tool by EIGE. Other examples from SUPERA are also referenced in the GEAR tool, Gender Equality Fab Labs and the Gender Equality Nodes network at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). At the end of the project this month, SUPERA will also submit the last public deliverables, among others, Guidelines and best practices for RPOs and its version for RFOs. Also, several participatory and co-creation techniques have been developed and adapted by YW under SUPERA, like journey maps, lotus blossoms, stakeholder mapping, cause diagrams or personas, and guides and edited materials on those techniques will be uploaded and made available in the SUPERA web for further use by the structural change community.

As part of our resilient response to the COVID-19 crisis, as part of SUPERA, Central European University (CEU) provided the senior leadership team with a list of recommendations for a gender-sensitive implementation of telework in relation to COVID-19 pandemic, while the UCM performed a Survey on working conditions, academic time usage perception and academic performance during the COVID-19 crisis, which was also adapted by the University of Coimbra (CES-UC) and the University of Cagliari (UNICA). Their results have been already disseminated in reports, conferences, and future academic publications.

At the level of implementing partners, key initiatives have leveraged change beyond SUPERA organizations. This is the case of the network of regional research funding bodies committed to advancing gender equality and mainstreaming gender in research set up by the Spanish Research Agency (AEI- Partner MICINN), in a country where regional governments have significant agency regarding higher education and research. At the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (RAS), a regional research funding body granted with specific capacities under Italian Law, the SUPERA-driven Gender Equality Plan was taken up as an opportunity to mainstream gender not only in research funding calls, but also for structural funds, at a time when the insular region receives considerable funding through the EU recovery plan. This impact also leverages the leading role the two Sardinian partners (both RAS and UniCA, this last one being the largest university of the Island) are taking in building a gender sensitive research eco-system in the region. Also, in Portugal, SUPERA has been the driving force in establishing Coimbra as a pioneering university, actively sharing practices and knowledge also with national gender equality policy stakeholders, at a time when parity laws became applicable to higher education and research bodies. As an example, during the latest legislative campaigns, Coimbra University’s Vice Rector for Research publicly engaged Prime Minister Pedro Costa with the gender dimension in research as a topic for his next term.

Summing up, SUPERA leaves six Gender Equality Plans in our six implementing partners, but also important changes and structures in our institutions that go beyond those plans. We leave materials, reflections, and inspiring practices as well as active professional bonds and networks that feed and contribute to the European structural change and sister projects’ community. We also leave a good group of colleagues who became good friends while struggling together to make the best of the project during difficult times. I am sure all of these will continue to impact our institutions and our personal and professional lives beyond the end of SUPERA.

Mutual learning & exchange between RFOs to foster institutional change: webinar recording available

Date: Thursday, 21 April 2022 at 10.00 – 11.30 Central European Summer Time.  

This webinar will take the format of a facilitated exchange between less advanced and advanced organisations, where the first will pose questions related to setting up and implementing a GEP (e.g. how to start, how to set up a team, how to decide on priorities, resources to foresee, how to mobilise internally, etc.) and the second will try to address the questions presenting their experience.  The duration will be approximately an hour with the participation of four RFOs. The session will be offered to the SUPERA GEP implementing partners and it will be opened to interested RFOs across Europe.

Learning objectives: 

  • Mutual learning and exchange: getting inspiration from others with examples of promising practices
  • Present the pitfalls and strengths of applying institutional change in RFOs
  • Inspire about possible benefits and interventions

Invited speakers:  

  • Laurence Guyard, Responsible for relations with scientific communities, ANR (Gender-SMART project)
  • Donia Lasinger Deputy Managing Director & Programme Manager, Vienna Science and Technology Fund, WWTF
  • Nadège Ricaud, MSCA National Contact Point, Contact Person for Gender Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique, FNRS
  • Elena Simion, International Projects Expert, Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding UEFISCDI (CALIPER project)

Agenda
10.00-10.10 Welcome / Expectations about the webinar
10.10-10.40 4 RFOs presenting their journey
10.40-11.00 Facilitated Q&A between the RFOs
11.00-11.30 Q&A and wrap-up

The webinar recording is accessible via this link on the SUPERA YouTube channel.

2022-04-27T08:55:01+02:00March 28th, 2022|Tags: , , , |

Unconscious bias in research funding: a new webinar for RFOs on December 16th. Register now!

How research funding organisations can intervene to avoid unconscious biases in their work? A new webinar designed for RFOs will take place on Dec, 16th h. 11-12:30 CET.

The first speaker, Maxime Forest (Science Po, SUPERA Monitoring and Evaluation partner), will explain the different aspects of RFOs’ work where unconscious bias may slip in and influence ultimate effects.

The intervention of the second speaker will be of a more practical nature: Carry Hergaarden, from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), will share NWO’s experiences with the ‘inclusive assessment’ initiative. This practice is being promoted by the European Commission in its recently published “Horizon Europe Guidance on Gender Equality Plans”.

After the two presentations, there will be time for questions and answers.

Click here for the registration form

This is the 4th webinar organised by SUPERA and specifically dedicated to gender equality in research funding organisations.

2021-11-30T16:16:06+02:00November 30th, 2021|Tags: , , , , |

#COUNTERIT: join the new social media campaign about Resistances

SUPERA, GEARING Roles, GE Academy, CALIPER and GENDERACTION have joined forces to launch the social media campaign #COUNTERIT

Supporting gender equality and efforts towards improving equality are often met with resistances.

They can take many forms: they can consist of a complete denial of the problem, disinterest in the issue, inaction, or even complete ideological opposition. They could be cultural resistances, social resistances, individual, institutional, implicit and explicit.

Throughout the campaign, in order to raise awareness of the topic of resistances and to show how we can counter them, we will be sharing examples of tips and methods that our partners have developed to overcome resistances, both at the individual as well as institutional level.

Share your experience on these resistances between June 21 and 25 on your social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter): download the Powerpoint template here or create your graphics.

Tell us in any language about the resistances you have had to face and what did you do to counter them, or what you think we should do as a society to stop them.

Don’t forget to use the hashtag #COUNTERIT and join us!

2021-06-14T15:52:14+02:00May 17th, 2021|Tags: , , , , , |

XI European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education: save the date!

The Women and Science Unit of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Universities, in cooperation with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), the Spanish Institute of Women, and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT), are pleased to invite you to the 2021 Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education: https://www.genderequalityconference2021.com/

The European Conference Gender Equality in Higher Education (GEHE) is an academic forum to communicate new research and analysis on gender and science. These conferences also welcome presentations on the development of gender equality policies as well as on the implementation of gender equality plans in research performing organizations (RPOs) and research funding organizations (RFOs). The topics of the Conference that include a new thematic area on gender, science and COVID-19.

The 11th edition of GEHE was planned to be hosted by the UPM, Madrid, in September 2020 but the pandemic led to postpone the event. The Conference will be online from the 15th to the 17th of September 2021. More than 200 abstracts were already received and evaluated by our international scientific committee last year.

The online edition will include different activities:

  • Plenary conferences by main speakers.
  • Oral communications in parallel sessions.
  • Symposia/workshops.
  • High-level panel as closing event at ETSI Industriales –UPM (live streaming).
  • Online networking activities.

Follow the news on #GEHE2021 in the webpage: https://www.genderequalityconference2021.com

Advancing in gender equality in Spain: the State Research Agency approves its first Gender Equality Plan

By Zulema Altamirano (Women and Science Unit, Ministry of Science and Innovation), Ángela Martínez-Carrasco (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology), Victoria Ley (State Research Agency). Ph: Daniel Sone, Unsplash

In January 2021, the Governing Board of the State Research Agency of Spain (Agencia Estatal de Investigación- AEI) approved its first Gender Equality Plan (GEP) 2021-2023. As part of SUPERA, the GEP has been developed by the Strategic Group on Gender Equality (GEI-AEI), supported by the Women and Science Unit (UMyC) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, one of the partners of our project. The GEP represents an effort to systematise and advance in the equality strategies and measures committed to in the Roadmap for the Development of the European Research Area in Spain 2016-2020, while integrating the measures already implemented by the AEI in its calls for proposals.

The GEP design is oriented towards the identification of needs and the implementation of measures to promote effective equality between women and men in R&I funding activities, which is the main mission of the AEI. The GEP includes objectives, specific measures and corrective actions, as well as the timetable for their implementation, which show the commitment of the AEI to promote effective equality between women and men in R&I activities.

Specifically, the objectives of the AEI with the implementation of this plan are:

  • To reduce inequality and under-representation of women in leadership, visibility, recognition and presence in positions of high responsibility in the R&I system, particularly significant in some scientific-technical areas.
  • To mitigate the consequences of possible interruptions in research activity due to maternity and caregiving, especially by young women researchers.
  • To promote the balanced presence of men and women in decision-making bodies and processes related to the evaluation and funding of R&I activities.
  • To incorporate sex and gender variables in proposals and to strength gender perspective in evaluation and monitoring processes.
  • To promote the careers of women researchers, by supporting the balanced presence of women in all activities arising from their research activity, including the leadership as Principal Investigators or their participation in evaluation bodies and processes.
  • To consolidate an organisational culture in the R&I system that is sensitive to gender equality and intolerant of discrimination and harassment based on gender, gender identity or orientation.

To achieve these objectives, the GEP includes, among others, the following measures:

  • To publish a report after the main award resolutions with sex-disaggregated data of the funding actions, among other indicators.
  • To analyse the success rate inequalities in the calls for proposals, identifying the possible causes and designing measures to reduce them.
  • To analyse the application and distribution by sex of the measures designed to mitigate interruptions in the research activity.
  • To design actions and training materials on gender equality and gender bias in evaluation for the staff of the AEI, the technical commissions and the evaluators.
  • To promote gender balance in the selection of evaluators.

The GEI-AEI will collaborate with the UMyC and the SUPERA project in the implementation of the measures included in this plan. In 2023, the GEI-AEI will carry out an independent evaluation of the impact of the GEP measures adopted, as well as additional measures carried out during the implementation period.

The AEI’s GEP is available in English at this link and in Spanish at this link.

2021-03-24T13:42:09+02:00March 23rd, 2021|Tags: , , , , , |

XI European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education: call for abstracts

The Women and Science Unit of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Universities in cooperation with the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) are pleased to announce a new call for abstracts for the 2021 Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education:

https://www.genderequalityconference2021.com/call-for-abstracts/

More than 200 abstracts already received and evaluated in 2020
New deadline for abstracts submission: 24th of March, 2021
See the topics of the Conference that include a new thematic area on gender, science and COVID-19

The European Conference Gender Equality in Higher Education (GEHE) is an academic forum to communicate new research and analysis on gender and science. These conferences also welcome presentations on the development of gender equality policies as well as on the implementation of gender equality plans in research performing organizations (RPOs) and research funding organizations (RFOs).

The 11th edition of GEHE was planned to be hosted by the UPM, Madrid, in September 2020 but the pandemic led to postpone the event. The Conference will be online from the 15th to the 17th of September 2021. More than 200 abstracts were already received and evaluated by our international scientific committee last year. The aim of this new call for abstracts is to give the opportunity to present new research, analysis and experiences from the gender and science community across Europe.

The online edition will include different activities:

  • Plenary conferences by main speakers.
  • Oral communications in parallel sessions.
  • Symposia/workshops.
  • High-level panel as closing event at ETSI Industriales –UPM (live streaming).
  • Online networking activities.

Follow the news on #GEHE2021 in the webpage: https://www.genderequalityconference2021.com

Gender equality in funding mechanisms: a new webinar for RFOs on 26 January

Among RFOs, there is an increasing interest in the design and implementation of measures to improve the impact of their funding schemes on gender equality. With this regard, SUPERA has launched a series of webinars and online workshops to facilitate experience exchanges between Research Funding Organisations (RFOs) that develop – or plan to develop – a Gender Equality policy. After the first two events that took place in November 2020, a new webinar is planned for Tuesday, the 26th of January 2021 (h. 11-12:30 CET): “Gender equality in funding mechanisms“.

During the webinar, participants will have the possibility to listen to two experiences of Gender Equality Policies and measures with regard to funding research. Both experiences are from Spain, a country that has been a pioneer in the EU to develop gender equality measures.

The first experience is from the regional Government of Navarra. Juan Cruz Cigudosa García, Counsellor for the area of University, Innovation and Digital Transformation, will share the experience of the Government in using their funding mechanisms to improve the gender balance in research teams, as well as in including gender in the research content of the proposals.

The second is from the State Research Agency active at national level, directly linked to the Ministry of Science and Innovation. This agency recently approved a Gender Equality Plan.  Victoria Ley, Head of the evaluation and monitoring department, will share the content of the GEP as well as the context and process to get it approved.

The second part of the webinar will be devoted to questions and answers and exchanges with the participants.

The participation to the webinar is open to everyone; prior registration is required via the online registration form.

2021-03-10T11:52:11+02:00January 13th, 2021|Tags: , , , , |

Experience exchange between Research Funding Organisations: register to the webinars

Among RFOs, there is an increasing interest on the design and implementation of measures to improve the impact of their funding schemes on gender equality. Sometimes these measures may take the form of a Gender Equality Plan, or of a policy, or other individual measures.

SUPERA is launching a series of webinars and online workshops to facilitate experience exchanges between Research Funding Organisations (RFOs) that develop – or plan to develop – a Gender Equality policy.

The first two webinars will take place on 13 and 18 November, 2020. Each webinar has a 90 minute duration and starts with two RFOs that explain their experience linked to the theme of the webinar. This is followed by a 40-minute Q&A and exchanges with the audience.

Webinar #1 – 13 November 2020 from 10:00 to 11:30 am CET
Gender Equality in RFOs, two experiences
Experiences from the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (RAS) and the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) on the steps in developing a comprehensive policy.

Click here for the registration form.


Webinar #2 – 18 November 2020 from 10:00 to 11:30 am CET
How can RFOs fight gender bias
Experiences from French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR) on measures to avoid gender bias.

Click here for the registration form.

To complete and enhance these initiatives, Yellow Window developed a tool that brings together resources and examples of measures that RFOs can take (and in several cases are already taking). The tool follows the typical journey or cycle of a call for proposals and is available as a web page at this link and as a board on Miro at this link.

2021-03-25T10:39:32+02:00November 6th, 2020|Tags: , , |