Women’s participation in science: to analyse 25 years of research
This is the subject of a tender, launced by the Research Directorate General (Science, economy and society) of the European Commission, for which we did submit a proposal last week in cooperation with the Centre for Gender and Diversity, University of Maastricht. The tender with the official title ‘Meta-analysis of gender and science research’ aims at collecting and analysing gender and science research carried out since 1980 in EU countries and States associated with the Seventh Framework Programme (altogether 33 countries).
The purpose of this study is to collect and analyse gender and science research on the following topics:
a) horizontal segregation in research careers: this covers the issue of choice of scientific subjects by girls and occupational choices by women, the perception and attractiveness of Science Engineering and Technology (SET), the causes underlying these choices (e.g. stereotypes, influence of family and role models, etc.),the causes of success and failure at university level, etc.
b) vertical segregation: this topic covers the barriers for women to reach top scientific positions (”glass ceiling” or “sticky floor”), mentoring / tutoring initiatives, etc.
c) the underlying causes and effects of these two aspects, including work-life balance issues, pay gap, mobility-related obstacles, dual careers, evidence of discrimination, working culture, stereotypes etc.
With a team of 4 persons we worked close together during a couple of weeks to design this research project and to select a group of highly qualified experts to cover countries and aspects of this research, which should steer policy-making on gender and research in the years to come and which should define future research priorities within the Seventh Framework Programme. We are satisfied with the result; we hope the evaluation commission for this tender will conclude that this is how they would like to have it implemented.