Quelle: Overcoming the Challenge of Structural Change in Research Organisations. Angela Wroblewski (Hrsg.), Rachel Palmén (Hrsg.), Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. 2022, S 161–179
Inhalt: Universities are large, complex and highly hierarchical organisations with deeply engrained gendered values, norms and practices. This chapter reflects on the experiences of two universities in initiating structural change towards gender equality as supported by the TARGET project. A common aspect thereby is the lack of a national policy in higher education and research providing specific support for implementing gender equality policies. The process of audit, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the first gender equality plan (GEP) in each of these universities was conceived as a first step in a long journey, providing a framework for engaging different institutional actors and fostering reflexive, evidence-based policy making. The analysis deals with reflexivity and resistance and seeks to draw lessons from bottom-up and top-down experiences of GEP implementation. It is the result of shared reflection between the GEP ‘implementers’ in the two universities and the team who provided support and acted as ‘critical friends’.
Schlagwörter:Communities of Practice; gender equality plan; Gleichstellungsplan; higher education; Hochschule; Marokko; morocco; Reflexivity; serbia
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Gleichstellungspolitik
Quelle: Overcoming the Challenge of Structural Change in Research Organisations. Angela Wroblewski (Hrsg.), Rachel Palmén (Hrsg.), Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. 2022, S 15–32
Inhalt: Gender equality plans (GEPs) are currently the preferred approach to initiate structural change towards gender equality in research organisations. In order to achieve structural change, GEPs have to be more than just a formally adopted institutional policy. Effective GEPs lead to a transformation of gendered practices and thus to structural change. This chapter presents the innovative approach developed for an H2020 structural change project and its theoretical background. We argue that due to the dual logic, which characterises academic organisations, the organisational logic and the academic logic, change is a complex endeavour. To deal with this complexity, one of the main functions of a GEP is to provide space and initiate reflexivity at an individual as well as at an institutional level. A theory of change approach supports reflexivity in all stages of a GEP as it ensures that basic assumptions of the institutional change process are questioned and reflected on by the different stakeholder groups involved in the implementation.
Schlagwörter:gender equality plan; institutional transformation; Reflexivity; research and innovation; resistance; theory of change
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Gleichstellungspolitik
Dokumenttyp:Sammelwerksbeitrag
Relevance of a CoP for a Reflexive Gender Equality Policy : A Structural Change Approach
Autor/in:
Palmén, Rachel; Caprile, Maria
Quelle: Overcoming the Challenge of Structural Change in Research Organisations. Angela Wroblewski (Hrsg.), Rachel Palmén (Hrsg.), Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. 2022, S 53–69
Inhalt: This chapter discusses the relevance of a community of practice (CoP) for a reflexive gender equality policy and reflects on the different approaches taken within TARGET. It is based on the literature on CoPs and structural change as well as on experiences in transferring this approach to the context of implementing gender equality plans (GEPs) within different types of research organisations. While the notion of the CoP was coined in the 1990s, literature on gender and such communities remained scarce until a recent wealth of research looked at the role played by inter-institutional CoPs in advancing structural change in research organisations. In this chapter, we examine whether and how an institutional CoP approach has been a useful vehicle for gender equality plan development and how the different configurations of internal and external stakeholders within the CoPs have impacted GEP implementation.
Quelle: Overcoming the Challenge of Structural Change in Research Organisations. Angela Wroblewski (Hrsg.), Rachel Palmén (Hrsg.), Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited. 2022, S 199–212
Inhalt: This chapter provides some concluding reflections on the different experiences of structural change encountered by the TARGET partners. The various TARGET partners had different roles in the structural change processes: seven organisations designed, implemented and monitored gender equality plans (GEPs) for the first time, two organisations provided tailored support to implementing institutions and one organisation evaluated GEP implementation. This edited volume provides an account of these diverse experiences of engaging with and catalysing structural change in very different research organisations operating in extremely different contexts both within the EU and beyond. The volume thus contributes to the growing body of literature generated from structural change projects by offering a specific focus on the TARGET approach. The TARGET process of structural change – undertaken through the development and implementation of tailored, evidence-based GEPs – was found to be strengthened through formal top management commitment and by taking a reflexive approach that was powered by communities of practice and supported by financial resources, gender expertise as well as gender and organisational change competences. Engaged institutions thus managed to overcome unfavourable conditions and implement tailor-made, context-specific interventions, some of them in areas at the cutting edge of topics and issues linked to gender equality in research and innovation such as tackling sexual harassment, sustainability and integrating the gender dimension into research content and curricula.
Schlagwörter:Communities of Practice; europäischer Forschungsraum; european research area; gender equality plan; Gleichstellungsplan; research and innovation; research funding organisation; research performing organisation; structural change; Strukturwandel