Studies find women underrepresented in FP5

The results of a number of studies carried out on women's participation in the European Commission's Fifth Framework programme (FP5) have shown that women are underrepresented in nearly all areas. The studies cover six of the sub programmes under FP5 and focused on the number...

The results of a number of studies carried out on women's participation in the European Commission's Fifth Framework programme (FP5) have shown that women are underrepresented in nearly all areas.

The studies cover six of the sub programmes under FP5 and focused on the number of women carrying out research in EU funded projects, the number of women evaluating research proposals, women's representation within the Commission and whether or not the funded research programmes address women's needs.

The studies recommend a number of actions to improve the position of women in EU research, including a wider dissemination of a reinforced policy message, developing the Commission's capacity to put policy into practice and mainstreaming gender in documentation and programme promotion and the evaluation process.

The recommendations state that 'community policy on equal opportunities and gender mainstreaming should be systematically referred to in all parts of the Programme, from the overall objectives to guidance to proposers and evaluation criteria.' They add that 'Statements about the importance of enhancing women's contribution to science should be given a higher profile, for example, on the Europa and CORDIS websites.'

Those responsible for carrying out the studies agreed that there was a clear commitment by the Commission to implement gender mainstreaming at a political level, but the researchers also concurred that there is no clear strategy on how to put this into practice in programme implementation. 'Institutional commitment has to be backed with organisational procedures calling for technical accountability from programme officers,' states the synthesis report. The studies also recommend that the Commission offers training to staff on gender issues and that more effort is made to employ women at A grade level.

The studies recommend the introduction of gender as a target of research in all work programmes and the establishment of a working group to 'gender-proof' all draft work programmes.

In proposal documents, statements should be included to encourage proposers to undertake gender-sensitive research and guidance should be given to consider the diverse end users of the achieved results and/or developed technology and describe their socio-economic profile, according to the studies. Proposers should also be asked to provide information on how they will ensure the equal participation of women and men in activities and should also be asked to provide sex-disaggregated statistics to reflect the gender balance of project teams. Finally, the studies recommend that 'the partnership database on CORDIS should allow potential partners who register to include their gender expertise as a crosscutting subject in the skills and competencies section.'

The studies found that women's participation in FP5 projects is low. The Information society technologies (IST) study analysed the hours worked by female scientific staff in projects and concluded that female involvement is disproportionately low considering the personnel structure of the organisations concerned. The environment study found that the number of women partners in proposals is under 20 per cent in all key actions. The Innovation and SME programme has the highest number of female coordinators according to the study, recording 20 per cent, whereas the IST programme has the lowest with 11 per cent.

Research also focused on women's participation in external advisory groups, the bodies providing the Commission with independent advice concerning the content and direction of FP5 research. The Commission has made an effort to promote a more systematic collection of data on the participation of women in both advisory groups and decision making bodies, but as this process is still in its early stages, a thorough analysis is not yet possible. Three of the studies concluded however that available information shows the Commission to have reached its target of 40 per cent female representation in external advisory groups. This target was introduced as part of the Commission's gender mainstreaming policy. Both the Human potential and Environment and sustainable development programmes met the target.

On the programme committees, which consist of delegates from Member States and Associated States and assist the Commission with FP5 management and implementation, the studies found the number of female participants varied considerably across the programmes. Some studies looked at this in more detail and found that female experts have far more advisory roles than decision making roles.

More positive conclusions were drawn from analyses of women's participation in monitoring panels, which are responsible for producing reports on the progress of programme implementation. An effort by the Commission to select women for some of the panels has led to a female representation of between 20 and 50 per cent.

Such positive results are unfortunately not the case where expert evaluation panels are concerned. A lack of women in the pool of experts, practical constraints (the fact that meetings are held in Brussels and last several days) and constraints due to the selection practices mean that women are poorly represented here. Constraints due to selection practices include previous experience, giving preference to previously selected candidates and the requirement to rotate expert evaluation panels.

Regarding the gender balance of the European Commission staff, the studies found that strong vertical segregation is present in most of the programmes. Notable progress has been made in some programmes however, with 40 per cent of A grade posts in the Human potential programme now held by women. The Quality of life study found strong vertical segregation of women among A grade staff and some evidence of horizontal segregation, where women and men are clustered in different research areas or disciplines.

The research detected a concern that the potential male-dominated culture of the Commission services responsible for the programme implementation could impede awareness raising of gender issues. 'These issues need to be promoted from the early stages of the programme such as in the production of promotional materials and information days. Moreover, a programme with a masculine public face inherently discourages female participation,' states the studies' synthesis report.

All of the studies formed the conclusion that the gender dimension is inadequately addressed in FP5's work programmes and that gender specific research, or research about women, is not generally included as a topic within the work programmes. The Environment study notes that of the 2125 proposal abstracts assessed, only one includes the word 'women', although the Human potential study found that eight per cent of the proposals it assessed had a primary research focus on gender.

Along with the other programmes, FP5's Growth programme, which did not carry out a gender impact assessment study is attempting to raise the profile of women in science and has seen some positive results. Whilst women only made up one per cent of project coordinators in FP4, the proportion has increased to eight per cent in FP5. Representatives from the Growth programme point out that industrial research has traditionally been restricted to a male dominated environment with an emphasis on physical strength. The focus has now shifted however to problem solving with an emphasis on socio-economic impacts, which is offering equal opportunities to both men and women.