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PRAGES PRActising Gender Equality in Science. Guidelines presentation Manchester, November 9 2009 Marina Cacace - ASDO. Institutional framework. Co-ordinating Action: Practising Gender Equality in Science/PRAGES A survey of positive actions schemes in the area of research decision-making
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PRAGESPRActising Gender Equality in Science Guidelines presentation Manchester, November 9 2009 Marina Cacace - ASDO
Institutional framework • Co-ordinating Action: Practising Gender Equality in Science/PRAGES • A survey of positive actions schemes in the area of research decision-making • Work programme: “Capacities” • part: “Science in Society” • Activity:” Gender and Research” • Area: “Strengthening the role of women in scientific research” • Co-financed by the Italian General Inspectorate for Financial Relations with the EU/Ministry for Economy and Finance
Department for Equal Opportunities (co-ordinator)/ ITALY ASDO/ITALY TETALAP - Hungarian Science and Technology Foundation/ HUNGARY University of Milan - Centre for Study and Research “Women and Gender Difference”/ITALY Manchester University - Centre for Equality and Diversity at Work/UK The European University Institute/ITALY University of Milan Bicocca - Sociology and Social Research Department/ITALY Aarhus University - The Danish Centre for Studies in Research and Research Policies/ DENMARK The Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Cambridge/UK University of Southern Queensland (AUSTRALIA) Simmons College School of Management - Center for Gender Organization/USA Partners
EU Denmark Hungary Italy United Kingdom NON EU Australia Canada* United States * Country represented in the ASDO équipe Countries represented
A knowledge management perspective • After a decade of efforts from EC, to try and take stock of the situation: • meta-analysis on gender and science research • benchmarking of positive action schemes (PRAGES) • Request: to go and see what is being promoted in support of gender equality in S&T. Targeted countries: USA, Canada, Australia • Analysing the programmes not to produce “new knowledge” to be generalised about them, but to co-ordinate existing one, supporting the dissemination of effective social technologies
Some more features… • General approach: • micro and not macro-policies • diversity of schemes and promoters • qualitative methodology (analysed programmes do not constitute a representative sample!) • Expected outputs: • database of programmes ► intensive approach • guidelines ► extensive approach
Benchmarking as a KM approach • Origin: management studies (1970s) • Definitions: • process of identification, understanding and adaptation of practices of other organisations, to improve one’s own performance (Cook S., 1995) • permanent process of learning and continuous quality improvement (Benchmarking Centre, 1997) • Procedure: identification of benchmarks, structural and procedural enablers, assessment of transferability potential • Key task: Choosing the relevant process/impact
What and how to benchmark? • In our case programmes are the most diverse: need to identify a common ground (WHAT) • In our case it is impossible to provide a traditional impact assessment of so many programmes, at different stages of implementation, in the project’s time-frame. Moreover, some impacts are particularly difficult to quantify (common use of indirect or proxy indicators): need to agree on an operational concept of impact, to the aim of this project (HOW)
WHAT: three impact areas • Reducing the diversity of programmes to three main impact areas to benchmark: • Friendliness of the environment to women in S&T settings • Awareness of the gender dimension in S&T in the making • Support to women’s leadership in the new social context for S&T
HOW: operational concept of impact • On the basis of a standardised qualitative assessment, an impact has been recorded on one of the three areas when a plausible connection has emerged between an orientation towards change and consistent implemented actions in that area • The notion is hybrid: it takes into account both cognitive orientation and concrete action, and identifies, more precisely, “conditions for impact”
Good practices? • Convention to include programmes in the database: • explicit aim of producing an impact on one of the three areas identified • prima facie existence of consistent measures • Convention to attribute programmes an impact on one of the areas: • actual consistency of measures • good quality of programme • As impacts, “good” practices are hybrid social phenomena, including both cognitive and operational elements. As impacts, they are “probabilistic good practices”
Quality and transferability • “Conditions for impact” of the programmes on one of the three areas • actual implementation of consistent measures • sufficient quality of programme (relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability) • Transferability potential • assessment of structural enablers (economic, technical and human resources, general context elements, etc.) • assessment of procedural enablers (methods for good practice implementation)
Golden and silver benchmarks • Criteria to award golden benchmarks (42): • Excellent quality (IQ 8.1 and superior) • Excellent or good impact in at least 1 area (IIMP 6.1 and superior) • Criteria to award silver benchmarks (29): • Excellent or good impact in 1 area (IIMP 6.1 and superior) • (all accepted programmes at least medium in quality) • Golden benchmarks may have 1, 2 or 3 silver benchmarks (a total of 110 silver benchmarks)
Transferability descriptors • Information disclosure • Replication occurred • Enablers: structural factors • Enablers: process factors • Obstacles • Tips from the promoters
The guidelines • Practical aim: not a scientific report, but addressing scientists • Not discussing theory, but using theory to frame practice and help understand its significance • A lot of ideas in short examples, but linkage to tools allowing to go more in depth (database and specific links) • Not to be read from cover to cover: organised by problems to address
Structure of the guidelines • Introduction • Part A. Women and science: Problems and issues at stake • Part B. A friendly environment for women • Part C. Gender-aware science • Part D. Women’s leadership of science in a changing society • Part E. Programmes that work • Bibliography • Appendix one: Summary charts of the three strategies • Appendix two: Summary charts of the tools, the action patterns and the methodological orientations
More contents REVIEW PROCESS • 3 members of the international Board of Advisors • 20 international experts • 71 respondents TO BE INSERTED • Executive summary • How to use the guidelines • Methodological note (Appendix three) • Linguistic edits • Specific amendments
Friendliness of the environment to women in S&T settings Awareness of the gender dimension in S&T in the making Support to women’s leadership in the new social context for S&T Actions promoting change in organisational culture and formal/informal behaviours Actions promoting work-life balance Actions supporting early-stage career-development Strategy 1: Fighting the “chilly climate”
Friendliness of the environment to women in S&T settings Awareness of the gender dimension in S&T in the making Support to women’s leadership in the new social context for S&T Actions challenging gender stereotypes Actions fighting horizontal segregation Actions aimed at gendering S&T contents and methods Strategy 2: Fighting gender-blind science
Friendliness of the environment to women in S&T settings Awareness of the gender dimension in S&T in the making Support to women’s leadership in the new social context for S&T Actions promoting women’s leadership in the practice of research Actions promoting women’s leadership in the management of research Actions promoting women’s leadership in scientific communication Actions promoting women’s leadership in innovation processes and science-society relationships Strategy 3: Fighting women under-representation
From the database to the guidelines • Part A. Women and science: Problems and issues at stake • Impact assessment Part B: A friendly environment for women • Impact assessment Part C: Gender- aware science • Impact assessment Part D: Women’s leadership of science in a changing society • Trasferability + quality assessmentt Part E: Programmes that work
Part A – Women and science Chapter One From figures to risks • Looking at the numbers • Three areas of risks Chapter two From risks to strategies • Finding solutions • Three strategies
Structure of parts B, C and D • Each part is devoted to one of the three strategies • Each strategy comprises a variable number of objectives • Each objective is broken down in recommendations • For each recommendation concrete lines of actions are reported • Lines of actions are illustrated by examples from the database
Part B – STRATEGY: A friendly environment for women • Objective 1: Changing culture and behaviours • Objective 2: Promoting work-life balance • Objective 3: Supporting early-stage career-development
Obj. 3: Early-stage career-development • Rec. 9 – Sustaining early-career researchers through policy and regulation • Rec. 10 – Providing personal assistance and training for early-career researchers • Rec. 11 – Increasing candidate pool diversity for hiring and promotions • Rec. 12 – Providing additional resources for women’s professional development
Obj. 3: Early-stage career-development • Recommendation 12: Providing additional resources for women’s professional development • Line of action: Establish dedicated funds • Five examples: • New Mexico State University/USA • Kansas State University/USA • VINMER/Sweden • UW-Madison, WISELI programme/USA • CSIRO/Australia
CSIRO grants for women returners • Some universities established programmes specifically aimed at preventing the attrition of women who have already started a scientific career because of lack of support for life course events. The strategy adopted by CSIRO (Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) is providing grants to women returners. It consists of the delivery of grants of up to AUS $ 35,000 each to support researchers to re-establish themselves and re-connect with research underway in their field. Several awards are offered each year. http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pmvp.pdf
Part C – STRATEGY: Gender-aware science • Objective 1: Overcoming stereotypes of women and science • Objective 2: Affecting scientific contents and methods