Gender in the balance

Transcription

1 Gender in the balance With the promotion of Quality Research and Innovation through Equality forming their basis, the Gender Summits have proved to be a remarkable series of events that have consistently addressed the most pressing issues of the day within the context of gendered methodologies. Representatives from the worlds of research, industry and government have been given a chance to interact; not only to debate and share ideas, but also to develop solid action plans for future research and innovation policy Gender Summit 1 Europe 2011 The first Summit brought together participants from over 200 organisations to explore how the incorporation of the gender dimension stimulates innovation. It also showcased effective gender equality programmes. Gender Summit 2 Europe 2012 The next event built on the success of the first, expanding its programme with a particular focus on preparing participants for the research and innovation agendas promoted in Horizon 2020, European Research Area and Innovation Union. The aim was to target gender issues faced at national, European and international levels. Gender Summit 3 North America 2013 Held in Washington DC, USA, the third Summit focused on the North American region and initiated a call to action to drive greater diversity in the STEM workforce and more inclusion of a biological sex and the gender dimension in the research context. 6 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION

2 Gender Summit 4 Europe June-1 July, Brussels, Belgium The Gender Summits have always addressed the most pressing issues of the day, and this year s event is no exception. The 4 th Gender Summit is set to focus on Horizon 2020, a particularly pertinent topic owing to the framework s strong emphasis on achieving gender balance in the European scientific community, with new rules ensuring that women are placed at the heart of research and innovation. International Innovation talked to Dr Martina Schraudner and Professor Dr Simone Buitendijk about their roles in the Summits, and the importance these events have for their careers and in raising the profile of the gender in science debate Could you provide an overview of your involvement in the Gender Summits since their inception in 2011? MS: I was a member of the Science Leaders Panel as part of the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) genset project, which was a starting point for the Gender Summits. So I have been involved since the very beginning and really appreciate the work that has been done by Dr Elizabeth Pollitzer, Director of genset and Portia Ltd, who are the main actors in organising the Summits and ensuring they are of such high quality. SB: I ve attended every Gender Summit that has been held and I m looking forward to Brussels in The previous Summits have been incredibly stimulating and it s wonderful to meet so many people from all over the world with expertise in healthcare. While I m not going to be a speaker this year, attending has always been a great learning and networking experience. This year s Summit will see a return to Europe after a year in North America. What were the benefits of having last year s event on the other side of the Atlantic? MS: The issues we are facing are similar in North America, and as such it was a great chance to exchange experiences, share results and concepts, and learn from each other. Such exchanges always set benchmarks, and benchmarks also give the chance to compete. Dr Schraudner, can you outline the role of the Gender Summit s 10-person scientific committee, of which you are a member? MS: The Summit is a hotspot of agenda-setting and debate, and it is also a way of spreading ideas and good practices. I think the exchange that takes place within this small international group is a very helpful starting point for developing the Gender Summit agendas and to spread the ideas and concepts which come out of the Summit into national contexts. Without the Summit I am sure the transnational debate would not be so lively and the speed of change would be much slower. What are the greatest benefits of attending the Summits? MS: The most fascinating aspect, in my opinion, is that the Summit is always discussing the most current issue in the gender in science debate. On the one hand, the Summit is setting the agenda of the debate around the integration of more women in science, and on the other it is a platform to advance the debate by raising new points based on emerging research. To illustrate this, when we began the theme was more about the proportion of women in leading positions; then it was about the integration of the gender and sex dimension into research; and now we are discussing market potential and innovation. SB: If I had to give you one word it would be inspiration it s great to be with others who do research in this area and understand the topics. It gives you a chance to learn a lot and you can then take big steps forward when you come back to your own organisation, starting the discussions and interchange at a new level. I find this very stimulating. Apart from that, it is a lot of fun and a great opportunity to compare and get inspired by examples from other countries, other universities and other situations. It is great to get a fresh perspective on these issues. To register for Gender Summit 4 Europe 2014, go to: participate3/register-and-attend 7

3 In anticipation of the annual Gender Summit, we interview two of this year s attendees, Dr Martina Schraudner and Professor Dr Simone Buitendijk, about their individual scientific backgrounds and involvement with gender issues Dr Martina Schraudner Director Responsible Research and Innovation Unit Fraunhofer Headquarters, Berlin What is your research background, and how did it lead you to your current position? I initially trained in Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and this culminated in a doctoral degree in Natural Sciences. In 2000 I received my Habilitation at the Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, Humboldt University of Berlin. After years of active research in the field of green biotechnology at the ETH Zürich and Helmholtz Centers, in 2001 I changed my field to strategic research planning and moved to the headquarters of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Europe s largest application-orientated research organisation. My main interest there was combining competencies from engineering and life sciences to develop new research projects and integrate gender aspects into research topics (the Discover Gender project). I received the Maria Göppert Visiting Professorship at Braunschweig University of Technology, and a visiting professor position at the ETH Zürich. In 2008, I became Head of Gender and Diversity in Organisations in the Department of Machine Tools and Factory Management, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Berlin, as part of a position as visiting professor. During this time I established a competence group responsible for research and innovation, which now has 35 participants. Since 2010 I have been co-director of the EU/National Science Foundation (NSF)/Stanford-financed project Gendered Innovations. How have your own experiences informed your views on the importance of women in science? This topic was part of my professional interests and work I came back to university because of that theme. Even more than the goal to increase the proportion of women in science, my main interest was always the integration of the gender perspective in research and innovation themes. How would you like to see the research landscape improved to give women more of a voice? Taxpayers should be allowed more influence in research and technology development, not only as potential customers but also in areas in which they are not customers at all. The main problem here is the lack of female researchers and innovators, which means women s perspectives are often missing. It is therefore important to find new concepts and approaches that incorporate these different viewpoints. I do not believe that women are not interested in technological innovations as the EU-funded Eurostat study claimed. As a result of management decisions, women and their needs are not addressed by most technological innovations, creating a story of self-fulfilling prophecies. We need more women in decision-making positions. In Germany, the German Research Foundation (DFG) distributes money only according to scientific standards, and throughout Europe we have similar funding regimes. Nevertheless I think there is an enormous need for more free, independent, pure research which, by its nature, has to be government funded. Can you outline your main duties as Director of the Responsible Research and Innovation Unit at Fraunhofer Gesellschaft? I am running research projects that involve Fraunhofer Institutes, as these institutes always collaborate in complementary fields this is nothing unusual, but my job is to integrate the different perspectives that they all provide before a research project starts; and quite often we are also involved with integrating different stakeholder perspectives. Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is a research organisation; we are not involved with creating products. As such, all existing models of asking clients or consumers for input are not helpful, as there are no products for people to buy. Therefore the integration of the different contributors perspectives is focused on the field of research itself. This may result in creating new methods that, perhaps, can be transferred to other participatory processes as well. What are your key research foci in gender and diversity? My main research interest is how to build and maintain diverse teams how to get more women interested in technical subjects, taking leading positions and so on. I also aim to achieve similar goals within established organisations and find the best ways to use such diverse teams in an efficient way. What is your involvement with the Gendered Innovations project, a collection of research methodologies for using sex and gender analysis in research and practice? From I ran the Discover Gender project, which was funded by the German Research Ministry. The goal of that project was to create a list of areas where the integration of sex and gender aspects may help to increase usefulness either marketability of results or opening up of new areas of applied research. We wanted to provide a kind of checklist to identify gender aspects in different fields of applied research, with a view to identifying innovation potential. The focus of Gendered Innovations is knowledge making itself. I talked with Professor Londa Schiebinger, who is the driving force behind the project, about the idea that innovation can be broader. The aim is to integrate gender analysis in all fields of research basic and applied and in technology, driven by engineering perspectives. 8 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION

4 Selected projects Dr Martina Schraudner is involved in a variety of initiatives based around the general theme of promoting innovation in research, with a particular focus on gender issues. Some of these projects include: Discover Markets: conducting strategic research projects on need-based research planning Changing corporate cultures preventing career disruptions: research projects in organisations with the goal of enhancing innovation potential by increasing diversity Forschungs-Blog: a research blog that aims to motivate diverse groups of people with an affinity for technology to take part in innovations, and involve them in the development of research projects Gendered Innovations: Collaboration with Stanford University, USA, to create an EU/National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded internet platform Changing Cultures: an academic-industry collaboration for sustainable innovation Shaping Future: enhancing innovation cycles through the involvement of citizens 9

5 Professor Dr Simone Buitendijk Vice-Rector Magnificus and Member of the Executive Board at Leiden University To begin, could you provide a brief overview of your background and career history? I m a professor of women s and family health and had worked as a researcher for 21 years before I took my present job at Leiden University, The Netherlands. My current role, together with two colleagues, is to lead the university on a daily basis. As Vice-Rector I deal with education and student affairs, as well as diversity within the University. It keeps me off the streets! In the past you led a team of 40 researchers as Head of the Child Health Program at the Dutch Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). How did this compare to your current role in academic leadership? Leading a group of researchers as a participating head is very different to an executive leadership role it is much more hands on. In my present role at Leiden University, the distance between me and the primary process is a lot larger so in a way I have to lead through others. There are also a lot of advantages because if there are aspects of vision and policy that you find important, you can really make a big change for a much larger group of people. The existing gender imbalance in academic leadership means universities miss important opportunities to achieve excellence in both teaching and research. How can these institutions take measures to increase diversity in decision-making roles? This is a short question, but the answer could be as long as a book! The statement is absolutely true; universities miss important opportunities to achieve excellence in both teaching and research, and there are many measures that can be taken. I think the biggest challenge at the moment is for universities to convince their leadership that there is a problem, and that they need to take it very seriously. Once the issues are identified, it s a smaller step to show them what sort of solutions there are and how they should start implementing them. Looking back years, the research had not yet been done to show the extent of gender inequality, understand why it had arisen and establish potential solutions. Now this work has been conducted and there are many measures readily available the choice of which approach to take clearly depends on the individual institution s starting point, but a lot of them are very generic. Are there particular measures that Leiden University is taking to address this gender imbalance? How do you plan to use your position to implement changes and increase equality? I think the major advantage that my institution has is that the executive leadership is beginning to take this problem very seriously. One big step was the instalment of a steering group with researchers and leaders from across the University, and starting the discussion about the why of the situation. Why is it important to have diversity and gender equality? We discussed why a university needs to have equal opportunities, and why that is good for us. Not just a matter of human rights and morals, but why it is good for the business of the university. Out of the steering group and the discussions came the decision to make diversity part of our university core policy. In January 2014 we appointed a lead researcher in the field of diversity as Diversity Officer we are the first Dutch university to appoint someone in such a role to monitor and streamline measures and ensure that what we do is evidence-based. This is a huge step forward but we still have a lot of work to do. We need to convince layers of the leadership that this issue really needs to be tackled and taken seriously. You can t treat it like a two-year project, give it a little bit of money and then move on to the next thing; this is just as important as academic integrity or any other big issues that universities are dealing with. This view is not yet the norm that needs a lot of work and attention, and also setting of good examples. That is why the Gender Summits are so nice because you can really get inspired. As a professor of women s and family health, and a medical doctor, what do you think is holding women back in healthcare? I think that what is holding women back in healthcare is no different to what is holding women back in academia and other parts of society. The biggest problem is the implicit bias that we all have against women in leadership positions even women have this bias, it is so ingrained in our thinking. The research shows that implicit bias against women starts pretty much from birth and continues through every step in their careers. How do you inspire your female students to pursue careers in medical disciplines? We should encourage female students to enter whichever careers they want to, but what is also really important is finding a way to tell them that, unfortunately, implicit bias does exist, and if they encounter it they should not start doubting themselves. As a university leader, I find that it is much more important to fix the system rather than fix the women. As institutions, we can make the situation worse by perpetuating the bias. If we are aware of it, we can give women the support that we naturally give men maybe even a little more to counterbalance the bias they have encountered previously. This needs a systematic approach; you could do it on an individual basis but this would require an enormous amount of work and it is very important to change the system in order to make it easier for women to get all the way to the top once they enter academia. You have stated that the gender imbalance in research and innovation in The Netherlands is greater than in other European countries why is this the case? That is just cold hard statistics if you look at the European figures, The Netherlands has one of the lowest percentages of women professors. That 10 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION

6 Excellence without gender bias Having co-authored a recent League of European Research Universities report Women, research and universities: excellence without gender bias Professor Dr Simone Buitendijk outlines its main points The key component of the report was the way we produced different recommendations for different players universities, funding bodies, scientific journals and national governments. I think that this is important because all these bodies need to work together, and they all present different challenges for women working in this sector. If you don t have recommendations for each of these parties then you re not very effective, and I think that s one thing that I really like about the report it takes these different elements into account. The recommendations are, in a way, very simple: make sure that you monitor gender balance and that leaders take the issue seriously; that you allocate budget; and that you have a plan. It is essentially like any other policy area that university leadership, governments and funding agencies need to deal with. is just one indicator, and it is the same with many others. Of the three countries that are below us, one is Belgium and they are currently doing great things so I feel that they will soon surpass us. Part of the problem is that we have a very pervasive motherhood culture and a large percentage of part-time female workers; of all the women currently employed in The Netherlands, 70 per cent work part-time. It is very likely that there is a relationship between our stereotypical female role development and the prevalence of part-time work for women. Then of course there is the gender imbalance, which is a global issue but when you add it to an already existing problem, such as in The Netherlands, it is compounded. What are the implications of failing to address this regional gender imbalance, and are you already seeing some negative effects? We will start lagging behind, and I mean this very seriously. We are not seeing these effects yet, but it always takes a few years before you start noticing, and I think it is inevitable. The EU s Horizon 2020 programme is all about global challenges, societal impact and inclusivity, and if you don t think about gender imbalance and gender innovation, there is just no way you can be part of that whole research agenda. We will certainly start noticing this in terms of the money that we ll be able to draw from Europe. It may take 10 years but it is inevitable that it will happen. What do you hope to achieve in the future, both at Leiden University and beyond? There is so much really and I have a whole list. I really hope that I ll begin to see the growth of women in leadership positions towards the desirable 50:50 split, and that we don t have to wait until 2060 which is what we ll have to do if we go on at the present rate. I really hope that The Netherlands will start changing and realising the need for female potential. Gender Summit Europe