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Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes

In the past 2 decades, many Certification and Award schemes (CAS) related to gender equality, diversity and inclusion have emerged in the higher education, research and industry sectors. According to a recent report, there are as many as 113 CAS which have been identified across Europe and beyond. T...

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Autores principales: Tzanakou, Charikleia, Clayton-Hathway, Kate, Humbert, Anne Laure
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8636898/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34869759
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.784446
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author Tzanakou, Charikleia
Clayton-Hathway, Kate
Humbert, Anne Laure
author_facet Tzanakou, Charikleia
Clayton-Hathway, Kate
Humbert, Anne Laure
author_sort Tzanakou, Charikleia
collection PubMed
description In the past 2 decades, many Certification and Award schemes (CAS) related to gender equality, diversity and inclusion have emerged in the higher education, research and industry sectors. According to a recent report, there are as many as 113 CAS which have been identified across Europe and beyond. These CAS aim at addressing inequalities in relation to the grounds of sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, and disability among others. The high number of CAS, and their continued growth, has taken place in parallel to the shift of policies and efforts from “fixing individuals” to “fixing the system.” In these schemes, gender equality is often understood as a structural, systemic challenge, with a recognition that advancing gender equality is complex and requires drivers and interventions at micro, meso and macro level. Studies focused on analysing and evaluating gender equality initiatives in higher education have been scarce, and often limited to specific schemes. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a better understanding of the CAS landscape through comparing two of the main gender equality schemes used by research-performing organisations in Europe Athena SWAN (in the UK) and Total E-Quality Award (in Germany). Based on qualitative interviews with stakeholders across Europe and document analysis, this paper focuses on strengths, challenges faced by and the impact of these CAS. This comparative exercise highlights particular learning points that can inform potential reviews of existing schemes and/or the development of new schemes such as a Europe-wide scheme. The latter is the focus of a Horizon 2020 project entitled CASPER (Certification-Award Systems to Promote Gender Equality in Research), which aims at making recommendations to the European Commission as to the feasibility of a Europe-wide CAS for gender equality in research organisations.
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spelling pubmed-86368982021-12-03 Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes Tzanakou, Charikleia Clayton-Hathway, Kate Humbert, Anne Laure Front Sociol Sociology In the past 2 decades, many Certification and Award schemes (CAS) related to gender equality, diversity and inclusion have emerged in the higher education, research and industry sectors. According to a recent report, there are as many as 113 CAS which have been identified across Europe and beyond. These CAS aim at addressing inequalities in relation to the grounds of sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, and disability among others. The high number of CAS, and their continued growth, has taken place in parallel to the shift of policies and efforts from “fixing individuals” to “fixing the system.” In these schemes, gender equality is often understood as a structural, systemic challenge, with a recognition that advancing gender equality is complex and requires drivers and interventions at micro, meso and macro level. Studies focused on analysing and evaluating gender equality initiatives in higher education have been scarce, and often limited to specific schemes. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a better understanding of the CAS landscape through comparing two of the main gender equality schemes used by research-performing organisations in Europe Athena SWAN (in the UK) and Total E-Quality Award (in Germany). Based on qualitative interviews with stakeholders across Europe and document analysis, this paper focuses on strengths, challenges faced by and the impact of these CAS. This comparative exercise highlights particular learning points that can inform potential reviews of existing schemes and/or the development of new schemes such as a Europe-wide scheme. The latter is the focus of a Horizon 2020 project entitled CASPER (Certification-Award Systems to Promote Gender Equality in Research), which aims at making recommendations to the European Commission as to the feasibility of a Europe-wide CAS for gender equality in research organisations. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8636898/ /pubmed/34869759 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.784446 Text en Copyright © 2021 Tzanakou, Clayton-Hathway and Humbert. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Tzanakou, Charikleia
Clayton-Hathway, Kate
Humbert, Anne Laure
Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes
title Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes
title_full Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes
title_fullStr Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes
title_full_unstemmed Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes
title_short Certifying Gender Equality in Research: Lessons Learnt From Athena SWAN and Total E-Quality Award Schemes
title_sort certifying gender equality in research: lessons learnt from athena swan and total e-quality award schemes
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8636898/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34869759
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.784446
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