Planning Institutional Change for Gender Equality in Research Reflections from a Study on GEPs Implementation in Europe

This chapter relies on and summarizes research and content delivered for the initial State of Art Analysis carried out within the EQUAL-IST project with the goal of providing an updated and comprehensive picture of the knowledge and practice on Gender Equality plans as tools for institutional change. Dimensions and criteria which allow GEPs adoption to be defined as good practice in terms of both methodological approach and impact have been elaborated. Based on the above mentioned criteria over 70 potential RPOs to be invited to in depth interviews were selected and finally 19 of them interviewed. Interviews’s shortcomings are summarized and analyzed based. The study provides answers grounded to literature and empirical data such as experts feedback to 2 main research questions: which are the main dimensions to define a Gender Equality Plan implementation process as a good practice? To what extent and under which conditions Gender Equality Plans can prove to have an added value as systematic and comprehensive policies in promoting structural change if compared with specific interventions or actions addressing particular inequality areas? This study has fed into the knowledge base of each RPOs EQUAL-IST Team member as a learning resource and how-to-do guide based on experiences from research institutions which have already initiated such a policy.

The EQUAL-IST GEP Implementation at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia

In the recent policies issued by the European Commission (EC), which were reflected in the FP7 and Horizon 2020 (H2020) framework programs, Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) have been promoted as the main tool to achieve structural change for transforming institutions and, in particular, their rules, regulations, organizational processes, and cultures. The Horizon 2020 EQUAL-IST (Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and Technology Research Institutions) project supports six Universities across Europe (Italy, Lithuania, Germany, Ukraine, Finland, Portugal) to design and implement actions towards gender equality, with a specific focus on the ICT/IST area, through two phases of implementation. The paper presents the analysis of the experience of the EQUAL-IST GEP implementation at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Italy. Particular attention will be devoted to analyze the encountered resistances and critical issues, highlighting the adjustments adopted during the second implementation phase to overcome them and to ensure sustainability of the main actions.

Promotion of Gender Equality at the University of Muenster’s Department of Information Systems

The article provides an overview of the work done at the University of Muenster (WWU), Department of Information Systems (DIS) within the Horizon 2020 EQUAL-IST project (“Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and Technology Research Institutions”). During the project, the existing at DIS challenges related to gender equality, diversity, and work-family balance were revealed, the objectives to address these challenges were set, and the interventions to achieve these objectives were designed, implemented, as well as continuously assessed and refined. This article provides insights into the course of project implementation at WWU, achieved outcomes, and sustainability plan.

Shaping Gender Equality Policies in IST-ICT Research Institutions Reflective Negotiations from the Participatory Audit to Design of Gender Equality Plans

One of the critical issues highlighted by the existing literature on structural change for gender equality refers to the tensions and negotiations between the transformative goal of gender equality policies and the multiple ways they can be re-assumed and incorporated into existing policies and institutional goals. Institutional change can happen via small steps by exploiting existing discursive opportunities, or it can be overtly resisted and seen as a destabilizing factor for the status quo and existing power structures. The H2020 EQUAL-IST (Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and Technology Research Institutions) project supported 6 Universities across Europe starting from their Informatics and/or Information Systems Departments to initiate the design and implementation of gender equality plans from a field such as ICT/IST featured by extremely low representation of female researchers and full professors. The chapter analyzes the internal assessment phase and the preliminary steps of the initiated design process : based on a mixed methodology and a participatory approach to design gender equality policies, quantitative data collection has gone hand in hand with a qualitative Participatory Gender Audit: staff members and students discussed the main challenges related to gender inequalities and an idea generation process was kicked off. Discrepancies between the ‘diagnostic’ aspect of assessing problems and ‘prognostic’ ideas for measures and solutions are highlighted, leading to interesting insights as far as the afore-mentioned tensions are concerned.

Digital Girls Summer Camp: Bridging the Gender ICT Divide

Women are currently severely underrepresented in the ICT field of study and in the ICT professions. This brings about severe gender gap at disadvantages in the access to new employment and wages and increased the risk to be left out from the digital revolution. Not only EQUAL-IST maps the gaps in ICT at the disadvantage of women in the different institutions and contexts involved in the partnership, but it also promotes actions to close the digital divide. One of these actions is a Summer Camp that is reserved to girls attending the third or fourth year of high schools to acquire knowledge in ICT by active learning implemented at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UniMORE). The activity has shown to be successful in a twofold way: a) in terms of diffusion and replication, increasing the number of involved girls from the initial 35 participants of the first edition in 2014 in Modena to almost 130 girls participating in 2018 to the summer camps located in an increased number of sites, including locations outside of the region Emilia Romagna; b) in its capacity to reduce the digital divide with a real change in girls’ ICT knowledge and in their expectation with regards to future education and professional roles.

Sustaining and Expanding Gender Equality Plans in RPOs from Faculty to Institution Level

Through a challenging 36 months period, EQUAL-IST project have addressed the issue of gender inequalities in Information Sciences and Technology research and institutions and influenced organizational structures through the enhancement of gender equality at six (6) Research Performing Organisations (RPOs), through the design and implementation of tailored Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) containing specific measures (activities/practices/interventions) to address gender imbalance. In order to maximise the project impact a dedicated sustainability plan was developed, to ensure the optimal use and institutionalisation of EQUAL-IST results and for ensuring that the GEPs design processes and implementation will be expanded from the Department-Faculty Levels to the whole Academic Institution. The EQUAL-IST project applied a sectoral approach to GEPs design and implementation: Faculties-Schools-Departments specialised in IST/ICT took the lead in initiating the process and achieved the goal to expand the GEPs since the initial steps of the process. In addition, balanced bottom-up and top-down design and implementation were carried out both ensuring engagement and commitment of highest hierarchical representatives (academic and administrative levels), taking into account needs and voices of employees, students and stakeholders at the involved research organisations. It has been impressive the fact that all RPOs designed their sustainability plans and secured the commitment of the higher management level, to continue the actions the next years.

The How, What and When of Project Monitoring Facilitating Successful Implementation of Gender Equality Plans in European Research Institutions

This paper focuses on monitoring as a key component of successful structural change projects. Project monitoring is usually defined as an on-going collection of project data in order to assess whether a project is going in the right direction and follows the pace and stages set beforehand. This paper elaborates on the how, what and when of successful project monitoring and describes the strategies and approaches to monitoring that was used in the international, collaborative project GenderTime. In this project seven different tailor-made gender equality plans (GEPs) were implemented in seven research institutions in seven European countries. The seven GEPs contained a very diverse set of over 100 actions to improve gender equality and strengthen the position of women researchers in these institutions. GEPs are inherently complex, constructed to solve complicated, multi-dimensional and contextually dependent problems concerning gender inequality. The project data in GenderTime, that needed to be monitored, was thus characterized by being qualitative diverse and quantitatively extensive. This paper describes the monitoring strategy that was developed to fit this context and the monitoring tools that were designed and implemented. The overall aim of the paper is to share and disseminate the knowledge gained regarding monitoring during the four years of the project.

An Innovative IT-Supported Approach Facilitating Co-Design of Tailored Gender Equality Plans The CrowdEquality Idea Crowdsourcing Platform

Only few European research institutions have managed to implement structural changes and modernise their management towards higher gender equality. At the same time, gender equality is recognised to be an essential component towards achieving innovativeness and better performance. The EQUAL-IST project (“Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and Technology Research Institutions”) was aimed at addressing this challenge by designing and implementing tailored Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) in the six involved STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) research institutions from Finland, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, and Ukraine. In order to increase acceptance, minimise potential resistances, and ensure sustainability of the interventions promoting gender equality initiated within the project, it was decided to follow a participatory approach to GEP design. This approach means that internal stakeholders were engaged in the GEP design, including decision-makers, academic and non-academic staff members, and students. In order to support this approach, an innovative online crowdsourcing platform, called CrowdEquality, was developed and applied within the project. Internal stakeholders from the involved research institutions were invited to collectively use the developed platform during the following processes: (i) identification of specific challenges related to gender equality, which exist in the research institution (‘problems’); (ii) generation of promising initiatives (‘solutions’) that could address each of the identified challenges; and (iii) voting on the selected feasible ideas. This article reports on the course and outcomes of using the CrowdEquality platform for the participatory GEP design within the EQUAL-IST project. Furthermore, it is reflected in the article on the challenges faced and lessons learned during the platform development and operation. The article provides valuable insights to the research institutions willing to apply a participatory approach to GEP design.

Gender Equality at the University of Minho: Empowering Women for Successful Careers in Engineering

With the impacts of technology and globalization, there’s an increasing need for studies involving topics related to gender equality. There is a need for growing awareness about gender inequalities and promoting effective actions for their eradication., it is no different. Effective policies must be implemented in academia and scientific institutions to address and promote gender equality in managing human resources, research and pedagogical activities. This chapter describes the actions carried out at the University of Minho to implement a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) under the auspices of the European Project H2020, titled “EQUAL-IST – Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and Technology Research Institutions”. It describes the activities implemented the encountered resistances, the strategic decisions made to overcome them and lessons learned during the execution along the process.

Gender Composition of Boards of Directors and Sensitivity to Gender Issues in Italian University Strategic Plans

In the recent Italian regulatory framework, planning is the main point in the effective accomplishment of the mission of universities. Among the planning tools envisaged by the legislator, on one hand strategic plans outline the mission, the strategic guidelines and the objectives of the University, and on the other hand the integrated plan, which includes shorter-term objectives and strategies. Previous research suggests that women in boards of directors bring new perspectives to the board themselves. The objective of the essay is to verify if the gender composition of these bodies influences the quality of the planning process that produce effects on performance and achievement of results. The impact of board structure on gender sensitivity of the Italian state universities is thus explored, and it is verified considering both the process and the content of documents (Strategic Plans). In particular, we use the content analysis methodology in order to build a compliance indicator on the planning process and content. The empirical findings suggest that boards with higher gender diversity are positively related to the gender sensitivity of the strategic plans: the participation of women in the board of directors brings new perspectives to the board and addresses the gender sensitivity of the institution.