Gender and Excellence in Science and Technology Research

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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

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Science and Technology Organisations

• as sites of knowledge production
• as social arenas
• as gendered organisations

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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

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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)

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• 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

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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

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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

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

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• 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

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• 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

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Only women have gender?

• Men in science also problematized
• Academic masculinities
• Men and academic networking
• Homosociability
• Master apprentice relationships

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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

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...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!)

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• 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

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Excellence

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

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Defining excellence

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

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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)

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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

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NAS (2006)

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

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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

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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.

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

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• 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)

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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.

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GATEKEEPING TAKES PLACE IN

• Research groups
• Departments
• Institutions
• Faculties
• University
• Research councils
• Scientific associations
• Funding organisations
• Ministry of Education
• Formal and informal networks

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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

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The dual role of gate-keeping

• enabling, promoting people, ideas, policies,
  providing opportunities
• controlling, excluding or blocking people,
  ideas, policies

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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)

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• 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

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• 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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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• 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

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

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Gatekeepers in Europe Source EC She Figures 2006
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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

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

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• 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

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Next EU step

• EU setting up an expert group on gender and
  excellence in research funding
• Report and conference 2009