Convention GENOVATE 2014

March 5 – March 7, 2014Hall Pazmaneum

FZaSP TU

Ilenia Picardi, Ofelia Pisanti (UNINA)

Introduction

The GENOVATE Convention 2014 was held on 5th-7th March in the Hall Pazmaneum of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Work of the Trnava University in Trnava. One year after the first Convention that took place in the Bradford University's in March 2013, the GENOVATE partners consortium and some stakeholders meet in Trnava to discuss the most important achievements accomplished in the first year of the project and how to plan the work for the 12 months. The Convention programme is in Appendix 1. The present document reports briefly the main topics and most relevant aspects that emerged during the Second Convention of the GENOVATE project.

5th March - Equality of Opportunity for Men and Women in Academia: Here to stay!

The Convention started with the welcome address by Jaroslav Slan, Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Work of the Trnava University and by the Vice Rector of Trnava University. Prof. Uduak Archibong, the GENOVATE International Coordinator, presented a talk titled GENOVATE: The journey so far.

GENOVATE is an action research project based on the Implementation of Gender Equality Action Plans (GEAPs) in six European Universities. The project uses a contextualised approach root in a process of ongoing knowledge exchange within the consortium partners and participatory evaluation. This process aims to design a social model of gender equality implementation underpinned by the Gender Change Academy framework. The main goal of GENOVATE is to ensure equal opportunities for women and men by encouraging more-gender competent research, innovation and scientific decision-making bodies, with a particular focus on universities. The project aims to implement innovative, locally-appropriate, structural, cultural and sustainable strategies for changes in universities and research organisations, and to promote the ways in which gender equality and diversity benefit excellence in research and innovation as well as sustainable growth. The core work packages of GENOVATE (WP3 to WP5) aim to improve the gender balance (fixing the numbers), to target the gender bias (fixing the institutions), to enhance gender and diversity dimensions in research and innovation (fixing the knowledge). Prof. Archibong concluded her speech highlighting that the focus for the GENOVATE Change programme is on helping teams develop their understandings of complex changes and how these relate to the particular contexts and situations in their institutions, so that they are better able to create plans that are more likely to be successful.

The keynote Teresa Rees, Director for Wales of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education and Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, started her talk, The role of leadership in promoting gender equality, with a quotation of the Prof. Londa Schiebinger, Director of the EU/US Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment Project: “What needs fixing? Fix the Woman; fix the Institution; fix the Science.” The figures of women in science in the European Union show that, despite of the growing number of women that held the PhDs (45%), few of them succeed in the their career: almost the 20% become professors, in 16 countries less than 10% Rectors, and less than 30% board members (scientific, funding, etc). Gender bias is still surviving in many aspects of the academic life, often in an unconscious way. It

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occurs in letters of recommendation, in preferences, nepotism and patronage in the academy, in stereotypes, and double standards in assessing competence. The gender biases influence decisions in the academy about what is ‘excellent’ and the final result of biases lead to the discrimination.In addiction, gender biases in research and academy create gender biases in the knowledge production and this affects the potential benefit to society. It is crucially important to understand how gender bias operates in science and technology and, more important, how to overcome it. To this aim the European Commission is promoting studies on the Gendered Innovation that employ the gender analysis as a resource to stimulate gender-responsibility in Science and Technology, in such a way to enhance the lives of both men and women around the world. Gendered Innovation give us some examples of how ignoring sex and gender impairs the quality of research and how paying attention to sex and gender improves it.Thanks to this kind of analysis, scientist have found out biases, for example, in medical and bioscience research (79% of animal studies in Pain in 10 years included male subjects only; between 1997 and 2000 ten drugs were withdrawn from the US market because of life-threatening health effects, especially for women). The result is that inappropriate assumptions are made on the basis of sex and gender and women receive a less evidence-based medicine, while men miss out early diagnosis of “female” disease, e.g. breast cancer, osteoporosis, etc. Teresa Rees suggested to visit the EC website for more information on Gendered Innovation, where case studies are reported, demonstrating how methods of sex and gender analysis function in creating gendered innovations.

Prof. Mariana Szapuova, from the Centre for Gender Equality, Faculty of Philosophy, Comenius University (Slovakia) gave a lecture on Gender equality in academia in Slovakia: Evidence from research. The first part of her speech was focused on the theme “Gender in/equality in academic environment form a quantitative perspective”.Prof. Szapuova highlighted the importance of quantitative analyses: statistics help to identify problems and aid the monitoring of effectivity of interventions. Analysis of statistical data from the academia in the Slovak Republic identified the existence of vertical and horizontal gender segregation. Statistical data in the monitored universities confirmed known phenomenon of horizontal segregation: women form higher proportion in humanities and social sciencies, men in technical schools. Moreover, the proportion of women decreases with increasing degree of academic career (scissor chart), the higher pedagogical-academic positions are domain of men, and gender in science and innovation is a relevant factor that impacts career track of men and women. Finally, Prof. Szapuova gave a views of causes of the low proportion of women in pedagogical and research positions in Slovakia.

Gregory Fabian, J.D., International Human Rights Consultant gave a lecture titled Measuring Gender Equality with Human Rights Indicators. His speech, in fact, gave a view on gender equality from a human rights perspective.

The Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) is a conceptual framework for the process of human development that is normatively based on international human rights standards and operationally directed to promoting and protecting human rights. It seeks to analyse inequalities that lie at the heart of development problems and to redress discriminatory practices and unjust distributions of power that impede development progress (OHCHR, FAQs on a HRBA to Development Cooperation). In a human rights-based approach, human rights determine the relationship between individuals and groups with valid claims (rights-holders) and State and non-State actors

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with correlative obligations (duty-bearers). It identifies rights-holders (and their entitlements) and corresponding duty-bearers (and their obligations), and works towards strengthening the capacities of rights-holders to make their claims, and of duty-bearers to meet their obligations.According to the FAQs on a HRBA provided by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the following elements are necessary, specific, and unique to a human rights-based approach: (a) assessment and analysis in order to identify the human rights claims of rights-holders and the corresponding human rights obligations of duty-bearers as well as the immediate, underlying, and structural causes of the non-realization of rights; (b) programmes to assess the capacity of rights-holders to claim their rights, and of duty-bearers to fulfil their obligations, in such a way that they can develop strategies to build these capacities; (c) programmes to monitor and evaluate commitments, processes and outcomes guided by human rights standards and principles; (d) programming is informed by the recommendations of international human rights bodies and mechanisms.A human rights based approach ensures that the implementation of Gender Equality Action Plans is in compliance with the University’s human rights obligations. More in detail, Dr. Fabian suggested the use of Human Rights Indicators as a Measure of Gender Equality. An indicator may be defined as “information that indicates a state or level of an object, event or activity. It provides an indication of prevailing circumstances at a given place and a given point in time.” (OHCHR, Human Rights Indicators). Human Rights Indicators (URI) can be either quantitative or qualitative, and either fact-based or judgement-based. Here below, there are reported some examples of Human Rights Indicators that can be used to measure the Gender Equality.Examples of Quantitative HRIs for Gender Equality1. Fact-based, objective indicators which are qualitative in nature e.g. factual description of

an event involving physical violence2. Judgement-based subjective indicators which are qualitative in nature e.g. is the right to

health guaranteed at law and in practice in a given country? Examples of Qualitative HRIs for Gender Equality1. Fact-based, objective, qualitative indicators : Summaries of claims of employment

discrimination filled by women and men of different stakeholder groups within a research and scientific decision making body.‐

1. Judgement-based, subjective qualitative indicators: Knowledge about human rights obligations among women and men duty bearers at various levels within a research and‐ scientific decision-making body.

Examples of “structural” HRIs for Gender Equality:Duration of maternity, paternity, and parental leaves and leave entitlements on medical grounds, and proportion of wages paid in covered period within a research and scientific decision-making body, disaggregated by sex in the case of parental leaves and leave entitlements and proportion of wages paid.Examples of “process” HRIs for Gender EqualityProportion of all job vacancy announcements stipulating that among equally qualified (or comparable) candidates a woman will be selected, where women are under represented in a particular position.Example of “outcome” HRIs for Gender EqualityRatio of womens’ to mens’ wages for comparable positions.Proportion of identified positions (e.g. senior officials, managerial positions) held by women.

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Later, the closing remarks by the Dr. Alexandra Bražinová, GENOVATE Scientific Coordinator from the Trnava University, concluded this first session of the Convention.

Learning market

During the learning market each partner had to prepare a table with paper, pictures, and any other kind of materials useful to show to the other GENOVATE members the achievements in the implementation of GENOVATE within their institutions. In this space each team lead illustrated these materials and addressed questions from the other members of the consortium walking around. This section gave to the each team lead the opportunity to share the achievements from their institutions and, on the other hand, to each consortium member the opportunity to learn form the other experiences.Finally, consortium members had a plenary meeting to debate results and achievements learnt from other partners. Here some results reported in the plenary discussion:1. A good process for renewing and refining GEAP, based on what is feasible, and working

with stakeholders (UCC). 2. Supporting FP7 project to integrate gender equality approach to all management research

activity (UCC).3. An integration of a diversity view into the GENOVATE (UNIBRAD).4. Gender budgeting (UNINA).5. Mentoring programme (UNINA).6. Database of staff and student (UNINA).7. A strategical process perspective in a long term that contributes to robust implementation

(UNINA).8. To insert gender dimension in criteria for promotion (all partners).9. Impact on media (AU).10. External stakeholders engagement (AU).11. To use alliances with external stakeholders to impact internally (LTU).12. To use the innovation as a gender impact driver (LTU).

International Advisory Board meeting

For this section we refer to the minutes of the International Advisory Board meeting provided by UNIBRAD.

6th March - Consortium Leads’ Sessions

The second day of the Convention was devoted to the WP’s sessions. Each WP, with the exception of WP7 (that led a longer workshop on the evaluation on the third day), had 45 minutes to give a preview of the next 12 months and a WP planning.

WP1 - Consortium Management and Project Planning Lead by UNIBRAD

After having shown an overview on the peak times (Figure 1), the Project Coordinator, Prof. Uduak Archibong, and the Project Manager, Juliet Maynard, illustrated the next deadlines concerning the management of the project.

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Periodic Report 1, due in June 2014 [month 18]This report has to describe the project objectives and the work performed since the beginning of the project. It must be of a suitable quality to enable direct publication by the Commission, be updated at the end of each reporting period, and include diagrams and photos.It must contain: a) a short overview of the project objectives for the reporting period considered [Annex I of the Grant Agreement], b) the Work Progress and achievements during the period; c) the Deliverables and milestones tables.Each partner has to fill in their own Form C in addition to the information provided to UNIBRAD: explanation has to include personnel costs, subcontracting and major direct costs incurred by each beneficiary and can be specified according to quantitative and qualitative importance of items compared to the total budget. The Financial Report has to report: separate financial statement for each beneficiary; a summary Financial Report which consolidates the claimed Community contribution based on information provided in each partners Form.

Partners to upload Form C to Portal Monday 28 April 2014UNIBRAD to assess submissions and request further information if required Monday 12 May 2014

Partners to upload additional information requested by UNIBRAD Monday 26 May 2014

UNIBRAD to collate all information and submit to EC Month 18 [ 16th June 2014]

Table 1. Form C Submission Timeline

Figure 1. Peak times overview

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WP2: Development of a social model of gender equality implementationCo-coordinating teams for WP2: Trnava University and the University of Bradford

After having given an overview of the work done so far (WP2 Progress Report; CAM Stop&Share report; Verbal discussion report), Prof. Uduak Archibong and Monica O’Mullane described the WP2 objectives:

1. To develop a contemporary model of gender equality implementation iteratively – a Gender Change Academy Model – guided by the Change Academy model and based on the process and outcomes of the GENOVATE project. To this objective corresponds the working documents and deliverables: Verbal guided reflections (M10, 24, 42) Written calls for reflections (M12, 20, 36) Outcomes/ Findings from GEAP WPs (institutional reports submitted to GEN meetings)

2. To establish a standard consultation model that will enable the comparison of GEAP implementation at micro and macro institutional levels in each partner organisation. The consultation model is made of up three strands: 1. Consultation via the Guided Reflections (verbal discussions)2. GENOVATE Community (online platform) (developed and maintained by UNINA):

the Community is a basis for collecting written reflections 3. Analysis of the findings of the GEAP/WPs

3. To identify facilitators and barriers to the model implementation from each partner in order to demonstrate a holistic and people-informed way of viewing gender equality implementation in research institutions across Europe.

In the second part of the session, all partner were asked to ask questions on the social model of gender equality. Uduak Archibong and Monica O’Mullane had to defend this product against partners, as they were a judging panel, simulating the format used in the series of the reality television programme Dragon’s den.

Finally, the WP2 leaders gave an overview on the work of the next 12 months: Next verbal discussions on month 24. Next call for written reflections on month 21.

WP 3 - Gender Equality in Recruitment, Progression and Research SupportLead by UCC

Dr. Caitriona Ni Laorie and Dr. Aifric O’ Grada illustred the WP3 tasks: • Task 3.1: Develop and implement institutional strategies for gender equality in academic

recruitment, promotion and progression• Task 3.2: Set gender targets for senior academic and research positions • Task 3.3: Support female academic researchers in accessing opportunities for advancement

in their careers To these tasks corresponds the following deliverable due in month 40:D3.1: “Contextualised Guidelines on Implementation of Measures for Gender Equality in Recruitment, Promotion and Progression for Academics and Researchers, which will recognise the role of local and institutional specificity, and therefore will have European relevance”.The WP3 leads promoted a group discussion to help each partner team in identifying 1) the objectives to be achieved in their WP3 GEAP Action Plan by the time of the UCC Convention in

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March 2015, 2) the steps to be taken to achieve this, and 3) any challenges currently experienced or expected to encounter in implementing the GEAP Actions in WP3, and how to overcome them.The key actions that emerged from the workshop discussion were:

all partners have to identify the next steps needed for follow-up towards achievement of Tasks 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 in their own institutions;

LTU agreed to share their experiences of setting gender targets in a ‘stop-and-share’ webinar for partners;

WP leaders have to coordinate ongoing documentation of learning process by partners to feed into Deliverable 3.1.

WP 4Lead by AU

The WP4 session began with an overview of the objectives of WP4 including raised gender equality awareness in academic research and scientific structures, better working environments for academic staff, sustainability of culture change to support gender equality. After the overview Prof. Ciler Dursun presented the four fundamental tasks of WP4 in order to highlight specific subtasks that will be focused over the next 12 months:

Task 4.1. Conduct a gender climate assessment of partner institutions to assess working environments and cultures for female academic researchers

Task 4.2. Transform culture, perception and behaviours in academic organisations from the bottom up

Task 4.3. Transform culture, perception and behaviours in academic organisations from the top down

Task 4.4. Ensuring sustainability of culture changes in the workplaceThe main objective of this session was to introduce the platform that will be built by AU to share within the consortium experiences of WP4 activities and to strengthen the links between WP4 actions with GEAP implementation process. The debate was aimed at the purpose of:

identifying the challenges and facilitating factors in preparing climate assessment process; enabling the project teams make more use of the working documents and outputs of WP4

to support GEAP implementation effectively.In particular, for the deliverable D4.1, Online Learning Package on gender competent leadership and management, due in month 25, the consortium members were invited to share the available experiences, materials, and web platforms on online learning packages on gender competent leadership. Partners were also asked to think about the targets that this online package has to address in the institutions. Moreover, partners were invited to think about the main challenges and facilitators in their WP4 actions toward the GEAP implementation and to identify different ways in which WP4 outputs could be more effectively linked to the GEAP implementation.

WP5Lead by LTU, in collaboration with UNIBRAD and UCC

The WP5 session was organised by LTU and UCC as a brainstorming session on the WP5 deliverables, at the aim of stretching minds, thinking outside the box and generating creative ideas focused on the two WP5 deliverables, the Code of Practice and Gender and Diversity Toolkit. The input from the brainstorming sessions was documented and discussed with the partners.Task 5.1. (Lead by UNIBRAD/UCC). Equality impact assessment of assessment policies, standards and criteria for research and innovation in each institution; identification of gaps between national

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policies and each institution’s implementation of practice.The Code of Practice, due by 20th October 2014, is an agreed and accepted set of guidelines to guide practice in a Gender and Diversity Competent Research Excellence Standards, aimed to guide the development and the implementation of Research Excellence Standards in the organisations. It will outline a set of guidelines to which policies and practices relating to “research excellent standards” will be expected to conform in order to promote gender equality and diversity. Task 5.2 (Lead by LTU/UCC). Developing tools and methods to integrate gender and diversity perspectives in innovation systems.

Development of an Innovation Strategy document with key stakeholders for the effective integration of gender and diversity perspectives in innovation system to make research results more relevant for companies and society: each institution have to develop a case-study of their Task 5.2 work.

Create a Case-study Portfolio of how gender and diversity perspective can benefit excellence in research and innovation in ongoing projects and initiatives: all six case-studies will be included in this Portfolio.

To this task corresponds the deliverable 5.2 due by 22th May 2016: “Development of a consortium Gender and Diversity Toolkit to integrate gender and diversity perspective in innovation systems”.

WP6 - Knowledge Exchange and Case studiesLead by UNINA

This session was devoted to clarify and improve the use of the GENOVATE Community (Task.6.1), to gather contributions on Knowledge Exchange (Task.6.2); to clarify the connection with the Case studies and Institutional Blog (Task.6.3). After a group discussion on the feeback on the consultive process on Knowledge Exchange and on the expertise that partners need in order to accomplish the WPs tasks and the actions of their GEAPs, Dr. Ofelia Pisanti and Dr. Ilenia Picardi commented quickly the use of the GENOVATE Community tools. In particular they highlighted that the Institutional Blog is the place where partners can take notes of the most important steps of the GEAP implementation and share challenges, goals, difficulties, and achievements related to this process. The IAB members and stakeholders can follow the development of the cases studies carried out from other partners, share their experience and comment them. The topics of the Institutional Blog are strictly related to the case studies.Each partner is invited:

to identify which of these topics reflect better the challenge of their GEAP to write a post every time they reach a goal and in any case to write at least a post every

three months.

WP8 - Dissemination and sustainability strategy Lead by UNIBRAD

Prof. Uduak Archibong resumed the objectives of the dissemination activity at local, national and international levels: to involve target audience and increasing its awareness, to position GENOVATE; to reach key stakeholders, to prepare and publish journal articles. The target audience for the dissemination activity is made by: policy makers at the European and national level, academics and graduate students, professional bodies, member states and other international

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audience, decision makers in higher education, research and equality institutions and other end users, Trade Unions and non-governmental organisations, journalists and media professionals. Dissemination includes different kind of activities (dissemination strategies, publication schedule, publication protocol) and makes use of different kinds of publications (academic journals, professional journals, policy papers).Finally, the consurtium had a discussion on the kind of Social Media that could be used to disseminate the GENOVATE project.

7th March: WP7 Evaluation workshop

The third day of the Convention was devoted to a workshop on the Evaluation lead by Dr. Maria Bustelo, Maria Velasco and Julia Espinosa of the UCM team.

During the first part of the workshop, the evaluation of the GENOVATE project as a whole was treated. In particular, it was made a brief theoretical summary of what an evaluation is, the reasons for doing it, and the different types of evaluations. Evaluation is not to be considered as an exam for people involved in GENOVATE but it concerns the determination of the significance of a project. Moreover, evaluation is different from monitoring, since it is a more in-depth analysis of the design, implementation and results of a project, and it is not a progress report, since it provides a global picture of a project, with its main successes and challenges, and also recommendations to improve it.Then the different steps of the evaluation of GENOVATE done so far and its findings were resumed. During the first year, UCM proposed to the partners an evaluation questionnaire, to be answered by all the members of the teams, an interview to each team lead, and Rapid Evaluation Feedbacks, to open a rapid discussion on some points that could be improved with simple measures; this last type of evaluation will be continued during the second year. Moreover, UCM decided not to present during the Convention the Ongoing Evaluation Report, which was already prepared by the UCM team, but to send it to the partners after this meeting, in such a way to incorporate inside it the valuable information gathered in the Convention days. During the second year UCM will conduct on-site visits to the partner institutions (one for each partner), starting from month 16 till month 38, with a schedule that will be decided together with the partners.

During the convention, UCM identified some challenges:1. different contexts: different GEAPs for institutions of different size with teams belonging to

different “accademic planets”;2. complicate relations between WPs and GEAPs, which correspond to the “project” and

“institutional” levels, respectively;3. communication challenges, due for example to the different languages and technologies of

the partner countries;4. overwhelming quantity of information circulating inside a busy project;

with corresponding opportunities:1. a richness of different experiences, which allows one to learn from each other, but requires

to find an “asynchronous” transfer model;2. for each institution the possibility of getting the best of what each WP can offer, but

requires to find a balance;3. the possibiity of using different formats (like bilateral face-to-face meetings) to fulfill

different objectives;4. the necessity of finding adjustements and adaptations.

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After this part, the UCM team proposed to the GENOVATE partners dynamics to be worked together on the idea that “…the better one knows what the others are doing and what to expect from the others, the more help one will get on how to do the different things”. They described to all the presents the findings of the evaluation questionnaire, proposed to the GENOVATE members during the month of September, and asked to each of the team to clarify the real understanding of their tasks and work against the expectations expressed by the other members in the questionnaire.In the second part of the workshop, the evaluation step by step started in the Bradford convention was continued, with the aim of supporting GENOVATE teams in the evaluation of their GEAPs. In particular, the UCM team focused on the third step of the process: to make the right evaluation questions and then try to answer them properly. At this aim, it is necessary:

to identify the stakeholder interests in the evaluation process and define the first evaluation questions;

check the quality of the evaluation questions, taking into account that they shouldo be directed to program not to events or social dynamics;o involve valuing and not inquiry on aspects of the program;o not be indicators but present concerns of the stakeholders;

to prioritize the questions taking into account their influence in the process of making decisions and their degree of uncertainty on the answers to these questions.

In the last phase of this process one has identify a strategy for answering the questions by operationalizing them; this implies a “vertical” work for organizing them according to different dimensions (analysis-design, processes, structural elements) and a “horizontal” work for designing indicators and techniques for each indicator.

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