EU impact plan 2021

17.6.2021

The main goal of the EU impact plan is to increase general awareness and build ownership and uptake of gender equality objectives and measures in R&I in terms of their implementation in Horizon Europe and the European Research Area. After more than a year, we have fully adapted to the situation caused by the pandemic and focused our activities especially on consultations, communication and dissemination of GENDERACTION outputs in the online space.

Since January 2021, we have taken a part in the following consultations:

  • consultation on Diversity, inclusion and work culture (EuroScience);
  • Science for policy/Science advice Eco-systems in Europe (European Commission);
  • Communication on the Global Approach to Research and Innovation, Europe’s strategy for international cooperation in a changing world (European Commission);
  • Pact for R&I in Europe (European Commission);
  • Declaration of Digital Principles – the ‘European way’ for the digital society (European Commission).

We continue to monitor the meetings of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and to follow the start of the negotiations on Horizon Europe Undertakings. We formulated our position and got in touch with some ITRE members to inform them about it. The last committee meeting in May when ITRE position towards Undertakings was discussed suggests that gender equality might be strengthened.

An important part of our activities is the cooperation with other H2020 projects focused on gender equality in R&I. Apart from two successful awareness-raising campaigns on social media conducted with our sister projects in the 1st half of 2021 (#SpeedUpChange, #COUNTERIT), we decided to map if and how it would be possible to coordinate better among the running projects (esp. those focused on structural change) to improve the efficiency and sharing the experiences in different areas of implementation. A questionnaire was created to find out the interest in such cooperation and to indicate what areas to focus on primarily. The respondents were also asked to give their opinion on the possibility of creating recommendations for the European Commission to improve the design and implementation of GEPs and design and implementation of structural change/GE in R&I. The results of the survey will be presented in autumn 2021.

We also took a number of opportunities to inform about the outputs of the GENDERACTION project and joined public discussions and events. At the launch of #OpenResearchEurope, on the occasion of the release of LERU’s Note on the implementation of open science or during the Czech Open Science Day, we stressed the need to mainstream gender equality in open science and open innovation policies. We were pleased to learn that the Guideline Paper on ‘Research evaluation in a context of Open Science and gender equality’ created by the ERAC ‘Triangle Task Force’ released on July 2 2021 quotes our outputs (see more here). We also pointed out gender aspects of international cooperation in science during the Science diplomacy event and as a follow up of publication of the document Fostering gender equality in the EU’s foreign and security policy created by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality of the European Parliament.

In the coming period, we will have many more opportunities to raise the visibility of gender equality in research through both our older and planned outputs. Stay in touch with us to be informed!

 

 


Read about the EU impact plan in 2020.

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