(CASPER) Certification-Award Systems to Promote gender Equality in Research

Certification-Award Systems to Promote gender Equality in Research (CASPER)

Project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme
Grant Agreement: 872113
Duration: 24 months
Start date: 1/01/2020
The project official website

The CASPER project aims at examining the feasibility of establishing a European award or certification system for gender equality in research organisations. Based on in-depth assessment of existing relevant systems, the project proposes to devise and validate four scenarios, including a no action scenario, in co-creation with national and international stakeholders. Each scenario will be pre-tested via a walk-through methodology, in order to understand their respective strengths/weaknesses, costs/benefits, other positive/negative impacts or their contextual relevance, and it will be subsequently validated with stakeholders.

The project will focus predominantly on gender-related inequalities in research and innovation, and will incorporate an intersectional perspective where possible. It will take place over a two-year period, and consider not only the European Union and its Member States but also relevant countries for gender equality certification/award systems such as Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, the United States and Australia.

Within CASPER, besides participating in all work packages K&I is in charge of the validation process of the co-created scenarios. Following a walk-through methodology, each step of the scenarios will be analysed in depth with the affected stakeholders at five European research institutions. The aim is grasping in practice, being exposed to the diverse perspectives of all relevant internal stakeholders, the complexities of implementation of the different scenarios in multiple sites, thus collecting first-hand information to draft a set of recommendations concerning each scenario.

News

Identifying policy recommendations on the certification/award system

The results of the validation activities (through questionnaires, follow-up interviews and walkthrough test), processed to highlight strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats of each scenario, have been discussed in two workshops within the CASPER consortium, including members of the International Advisory Board. The objective was to identify those policy measures that could realistically optimise the advantages and minimise the shortcomings of each scenario while maintaining their distinctive identity as alternative, credible policy options, each one presenting a specific trade-off profile. The connection with the Horizon Europe GEP requirement is also incorporated in many recommendations, aiming at harmonising the two policy ...

Validating the scenarios through walkthrough tests

The second consultation approach of the validation process entailed conducting – between September and December 2021 – ten institutional walkthrough exercises in European RPOs to test the feasibility of the individual features of one scenario among EUQUAL, the GES4R, and the European Athena SWAN. In each involved institution, a group of internal stakeholders of four to seven people “walked through” the various steps of the implementation of one of these scenarios to assess its usability and identify the main challenges they would face along the way. A total of 57 people participated in the tests, constituting a balanced panel in ...

Validating the scenarios through structured questionnaires and follow-up interviews

Within Task 6.1 “First validation of scenarios with policy-makers and key stakeholders”, the first three scenarios and – to a more limited extent, also the fourth one – have undergone the first step of the validation process. Between June 1st and October 20th 2021, key stakeholders (representatives of research performing and research funding organisations, experts, and policy-makers) have been consulted through structured questionnaires (including both closed- and open-ended questions) and semi-structured follow-up interviews to assess several criteria of the scenarios, such as the overall attractiveness and feasibility of each scenario, the feasibility of the individual features of the scenarios, and ...

Four concept scenarios

Following ten stakeholder workshops, two online open forum discussions, and three additional workshops with different target groups (national policy-makers, RFOs, and private sector organisations), the CASPER consortium, in May 2021, selected and developed for the validation phase three scenarios for a Europe-wide Gender Equality Certification or Award Scheme (GECAS) as well as a fourth no-action scenario.The first scenario is the creation of a brand-new Europe-wide GECAS (also named “EUQUAL”). This scenario is the most ambitious. It could achieve higher impacts but also costs more to implement. The second is based on an existing European award scheme, the HRS4R, and is ...

Developing four system scenarios through ten co-creation workshops with stakeholders

Between mid-January and mid-February 2021, within the framework of Task 5.2, ten co-creation online workshops with stakeholders were organised in order to develop four "system scenarios" (3 + one scenario without direct action). Workshops' participants worked together in plenary or in small groups on the Miro collaborative online board using virtual posters to add sticky notes, pictures or comments. There was a total of 133 participants in the workshops including different groups of stakeholders, experts, members of the consortium, and facilitators. The participants came from 26 European countries plus Australia. Out of the 133 participants, 88 were external to the ...

Distilling prerequisites of an effective certification/award scheme for gender equality in research: online workshop

To conclude the assessment of existing certification/award schemes for gender equality for Research Performing Organizations, making the object of WP4, and moving forward the design of scenarios for establishing a European award/certification system, which is the purpose of WP5, an internal online workshop with the CASPER consortium partners took place on October 21 and 22, 2020. Representatives of the EC DG RTD Gender Sector also attended the initiative.This activity was part of task 4.3, devoted to distil key prerequisites for an effective award/certification system and was hinged on the results of the previous actions of review and assessment of similar ...

Assessment of the certification schemes of gender equality: K&I contribution to the fieldwork

As part of the evaluation of gender equality certification/award schemes (CAS) in research and non-research institutions (WP4, task 4.2), coordinated by the Oxford Brookes University team, between May and July 2020, Marina Cacace and Giovanna Declich of K&I carried out 16 qualitative interviews to promoters and users of certification/award schemes Europe-wide, as well as gender experts.The interviewees from Italy, France, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, and Estonia were consulted about the CAS they were involved in and their suggestions for a possible future European certification scheme for gender equality.A synthetic report based on the evidences collected has been drafted to inform the ...

Kick-off meeting of the CASPER project in Strasbourg

The first project meeting of CASPER was held on 9 and 10 January 2020 at the headquarters of the coordinator (European Science Foundation) in Strasbourg. On this occasion, the different organisations and teams introduced themselves, and the general approach of the project was presented by the Oxford Brookes University team, before reviewing and discussing all the work packages.The presence of Anne Pépin (Senior Policy Officer of the European Commission, SwafS/Science with and for Society Unit, DG Research and Innovation) throughout the project allowed putting the project in the more general context of the Commission’s policies for gender in science in ...