Events
On 30 March, more than 20 representatives of our Research Funding Organisation Community of Practice met to exchange experiences from work in the field of gender equality.
Apart from the presentation of the webinars and other events now being prepared in the GENDERACTIONplus consortium, a new allied partner to the RFOs CoP, the Malta Council for Science and Technology, was warmly welcomed into the Community. We are sure that it will be a much-appreciated contribution to the CoP!
The ongoing work of two Working groups was introduced in the second part of the meeting. Emer Cahill from Irish Research Council explained how to mitigate gender bias in the research and innovation funding process. In her contribution, she presented a detailed list of aspects to be taken into account and concrete examples of interventions from practice. She also emphasized the need to monitor the success of implementing measures.
The second block of presentations focused on promoting institutional change. The Working Group leader Paola Bello from Regional Foundation for Biomedical Research (Italy), had invited two external partners, Shelia González Castilla (AEI – Spain) and Angela Zeller (ANR – France), to present their insights on the implementation of Gender Equality Plans. The participants of the discussion that followed agreed on the fundamental importance of this tool for further progress in gender equality in funding and in research and innovation overall. The strong impetus for the implementation of GEPs in Spain and France given by the national authorities was also crucial.