Gender and Excellence in Science and Technology Research - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 43
About This Presentation
Title:

Gender and Excellence in Science and Technology Research

Description:

CEM-CONICYT CONFERENCE EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE AND GENDER EQUALITY: ... the definition and measurement of scientific excellence', Florence, October 2003 ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:91
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 44
Provided by: lhu7
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Gender and Excellence in Science and Technology Research


1
Gender and Excellence in Science and Technology
Research
  • Dr. Liisa Husu
  • University of Helsinki
  • CEM-CONICYT CONFERENCE EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE AND
    GENDER EQUALITY
  • IN SEARCH OF GOOD PRACTICES IN SCIENCE AND
    TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH
  • Santiago, November 6, 2007

2
Science and Technology Organisations
  • as sites of knowledge production
  • as social arenas
  • as gendered organisations

3
History of women in science
  • exclusion of women from universities and science
    academies because of their sex
  • resistance against womens entry
  • resistance against pioneering women

4
European setting slow progress
  • Only 15 of full professors are women
  • Majority of university graduates have been women
    since the 1990s
  • Women earn 4 out of 10 doctorates
  • 95 or more of technology professors are men
  • Figures for 2004 (ECShe Figures 2006)

5
(No Transcript)
6
(No Transcript)
7
  • Across the EU, only 29 of researchers women in
    2004
  • In Business and Enterprise sector, only 18 of
    researchers women, even if it is the largest
    research sector in many countries

8
European setting
  • Considerable diversity across
  • Europe when it comes to scientific
    infrastructure, history of womens engagement in
    HE and scientific professions, gender equality
    agendas, work-life balance provisions

9
(No Transcript)
10
Common factors
  • a lack of gender balance in decision making about
    science policy and among those who determine what
    constitutes good science.
  • Teresa Rees National Policies on Women and
    Science in Europe 2002

11
  • Why so slow progress towards
  • gender balance and gender
  • equality in academia and research?
  • Why so few women at the top in academia?

12
  • Traditional way to approach inequalities in
    science and academia
  • Women are the problem that needs to be fixed or
  • Women have problems in research careers

13
  • Change in conceptualising the debate on women in
    science in the 1990s
  • Focus on academic and scientific organisations
    how they treat women and men produce and
    reproduce gendered hierarchies

14
Only women have gender?
  • Men in science also problematized
  • Academic masculinities
  • Men and academic networking
  • Homosociability
  • Master apprentice relationships

15
Why promote women and gender equality in science?
  • Human rights argument
  • everybody should be able to realize their
    potential regardless of their gender
  • Excellence and quality argument
  • best brains and talents should be recruited to
    research, regardless of gender

16
...why promote
  • Scientific labour force argument
  • recruitment base for research is diminishing with
    smaller cohorts ? need to recruit both women and
    men
  • National economical argument
  • it is economically wasteful for society not to
    utilize fully the talents of highly educated
    women (majority of graduates!)

17
  • Epistemological argument
  • researchers with more diverse (gender, ethnic,
    class etc.) backgrounds representing broader
    groups in society
  • - formulate more diverse and different research
    questions
  • produce more multidimensional research
  • Quality through diversity

18
Excellence
  • the new science policy buzzword
  • national and European centres of excellence
  • networks of excellence
  • excellence as funding criteria

19
Defining excellence
  • Do we recognize it, when we see it?
  • Contested terrain
  • Excellence as a social construction
  • Who defines?
  • What criteria are used?

20
Gender and excellence
  • EU Workshop Minimising gender bias in the
    definition and measurement of scientific
    excellence, Florence, October 2003
  • Report Gender and Excellence in the Making (2004)

21
US NAS Report (2006)
  • Beyond Bias and Barriers Fulfilling the
    Potential of Women in Academic Science and
    Engineering
  • by the National Academy of Sciences, National
    Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine
    of the National Academies

22
NAS (2006)
  • Most people, men and women, hold implicit gender
    bias.
  • Evaluation criteria contain arbitrary and
    subjective components which disadvantage women.

23
Gender bias possible in
  • Characterization of scientific excellence
  • Assessment criteria
  • Indicators (explicit or implicit) used
  • Applying the criteria to men and women
  • Recruitment and composition of gate-keepers

24
Gate-keeping
  • Robert K. Merton (in The Sociology of Science,
    1973)
  • Gate-keeper the fourth major role or function
    of scientists, in addition to those of
    researcher, teacher and administrator.

25
  • Basic to the systems of evaluation and the
    allocation of roles and resources in science
  • Affects contemporary science in its every aspect

26
  • Gate-keepers evaluate the promise and
    limitations of aspirants to new positions,
  • thus affecting the mobility of individual
    scientists and, in the aggregate, the
    distribution of personnel throughout the system.
    (Merton 1973)

27
GATE-KEEPING ARENAS IN ACADEMIA
  • agenda setting
  • policy decisions
  • creation of academic posts
  • academic appointments
  • promotion/recruitment decisions
  • funding decisions
  • allocation of resources
  • decisions on awards and prizes
  • publishing
  • evaluations of performance
  • Etc.

28
GATEKEEPING TAKES PLACE IN
  • Research groups
  • Departments
  • Institutions
  • Faculties
  • University
  • Research councils
  • Scientific associations
  • Funding organisations
  • Ministry of Education
  • Formal and informal networks

29
Gate-keeping and gate-keepers
  • gate-keepers both organizational and individual
  • gate-keeping policies
  • gate-keeping practices
  • both content of decisions and processes of
    decision-making

30
The dual role of gate-keeping
  • enabling, promoting people, ideas, policies,
    providing opportunities
  • controlling, excluding or blocking people,
    ideas, policies

31
Gate-keeping in EU funding
  • 40 target for womens representation in
    committees, panels and advisory groups
  • Evaluation panels
  • FP5 22 27 of women (2001), FP6 26
    (2003)

32
  • European Commission ETAN report on promoting
    gender equality in science (2000)
  • Gate-keepers of research funding in Europe
    consist to a large extent of middle-age male
    academics

33
  • Gatekeepers of research funding in Finland
    (ongoing study by Husu)
  • Do you think it is important to have both women
    and men among decision-makers on research
    funding?

34
Strong acceptance support
  • Professor, male, member of a National Research
    Council
  • I think it is very important. I think it is a
    significant issue. I think it is good that the
    Academy of Finland the National Research Council
    organisation has taken up among the first in
    Finland a relatively strong gender equality plan
    and it should be further developed. It is it is
    a significant issue.

35
Research funding vs. academic recruitment
  • Professor, female, expert/evaluator tasks in
    allocating intra-university research funding
  • Yes, I do think it is quite apparent. I think
    the situation when it comes to gender balance
    has changed especially in allocation of research
    funding, it is remarkably better now than it was
    earlier, after it has become as if a duty to
    place both women and men among the experts. The
    situation gender balance is much better in
    research funding allocation than it is in
    recruitment to academic posts.

36
Problematizing womens expertise
  • Professor, male, Chair of a National Research
    Council
  • Well, in a way we are so used to it in Finland
    that it is sort of not questioned of course
    pause and I see it as important. But I mean I
    am not one of those.I do not sort of want long
    pause that it would be some forced criterion so
    that if there is such a situation that we know
    that there is a female expert who is clearly one
    could say weaker, we have to use her only
    because she is a woman. So I think we do then
    somewhat make a disservice for the issue. But as
    such kind of a general principle it is good.

37
  • Professor emerita Pirjo Mäkelä, the first female
    academician in Finland
  • I would be very suspicious of a committee with
    80 of male members.
  • Highest scientific honorary position in Finland

38
  • Only in Finland, Norway and Sweden proportion of
    women members in the scientific boards over 40 -
    most EU countries below 20

39
Gatekeepers in Europe Source EC She Figures 2006
40
Future European priorities
  • Women in Science Excellence and Innovation
    Gender Equality in Science, European Commission
    Staff Working Document 2005
  • Improving scientific excellence by promoting
    gender awareness and fairness
  • Boosting the numbers of women in leading positions

41
  • Increasing gender awareness of scientists
    evaluating research by
  • developing and implementing special training
    programmes on potential areas of gender bias

42
  • Increasing transparency of screening and
    selection procedures
  • Guidelines should be developed and implemented
  • Accountability of panels
  • Public advertising of positions
  • Explicit standards of promotion or appointment
  • Using appropriate indicators of performance

43
Next EU step
  • EU setting up an expert group on gender and
    excellence in research funding
  • Report and conference 2009
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com