Both the European and Spanish research funding organizations promote the integration of the gender perspective in research and innovation (R&I) so that gender is a cross-cutting issue and is mainstreamed in each part of the projects’ work programme. Thus grant beneficiaries commit to foster equal opportunities and a balanced participation of women and men at all levels in R&I teams and management structures, and the gender dimension must be included in the research content. However, in spite of legal duties and recommendations, gender biases persist in research and technological developments in all fields of knowledge, which maintain androcentric perspectives and discriminatory power structures that perpetuate social inequalities.
Jörg Müller, senior researcher in Gender and ICT, has participated this week in the whorkshop “Gender and Science: Gender Mainstreaming in European Projects”, organized on 16-17 January 2017 by the Gender Equality Observatory of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili and G-NET project. The event was aimed at researchers and professors in order to explore the gender specific funding opportunities of Horizon 2020 and to train them to integrate the gender mainstreaming as a cross-cutting aspect of their academic work.
Jörg Müller presented diverse R&I projects that include the gender dimension and were discussed among other European examples of smart practices. His presentation was preceded by theoretical sessions with Capitolina Díaz (Universitat de València), Aïda Díaz (Agency for Universities and Research Grants – AGAUR) and Paloma Pontón (URV), who stated the situation of women and men in Science and Technology and analysed the use of gender indicators in research and technological development.