Year: 2018
Type: report
Abstract: This report is an output from the EU-funded GENERA project, No 665637, conducted between September 2015 and August 2018.The aim of the project was to implement Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) in physics research organisations.11 consortium partners have undertaken this task.They were supported by two partners with extensive expertise in the area of gender issues in science, as well as renown gender experts.Observing the process were 18 additional physics research organisations.The significance of GENERA lies in the involvement of physicists as the implementing actors, and targeting physics, a field well known for its persistent gender imbalance in the participation of women and strong masculine cultures, as an area for structural change in research performing organisations.This is clear from the methods used, which focus on the availability and reliability of data, the need to be able to make comparison between the position of women and men in different institution, and the need to establish benchmarks for monitoring change, and, lastly, the recognition that the GEP implementation approach should be systematic and the outcomes sustainable.This report is an example of this approach.GEPs are intended to solve structural and cultural problems that create inequality conditions in an organisation, resulting in women and men having different opportunities to create a successful research career.To understand these conditions, the GENERA partner, Jagiellonian University, devised a questionnaire to be used by the 11 GEP implementing partners to assess how researchers, women and men, at junior and senior career levels perceive their own work and career-advancement conditions and the opportunities to succeed opened to them, as well as the barriers that prevent them achieve professional excellence.The report analyses the responses of nearly 90 interviews.The Appendix provides details of the questionnaire and guidelines for the interview process.Understanding what troubles staff is an essential first step to being able to develop implementable GEPs, that will work well.This report and other GENERA tools are designed to help research performing and research funding organisation to apply the GEPs approach not only in physics but more widely, as well.
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2925119968