Communities of PrACTice for Accelerating Gender Equality and Institutional Change in Research and Innovation across Europe

ACT will enable better access, sharing, and improvement of gender equality knowledge by advancing Communities of Practice (CoP) as agents for implementing gender equality actions among RPOs and RFOs in ERA, including integration of the gender dimension into research content and process.

Considerable advances have been made in the EU in the last decade in these areas, but the resulting experiences and practices are scattered widely, which prevents systematic and systemic action. ACT will improve this situation by starting up a network of 7 Communities of Practice and developing a Practice Toolkit, as well as creating an EU-wide change monitoring and benchmarking system, and an on-line Hub for knowledge and experience sharing. The design of these outputs will take into consideration inter- and intra-institutional diversity, as well as differences in national contexts.

The Consortium includes 19 organisations (experienced and novice), and includes 50 experts, to ensure that results are sustainable and produce the desired impact. The expected impacts include: 1) ensuring that researchers, their organisations, and the projects they are involved in are better equipped to stop gender bias affecting quality of science knowledge making; 2) improving understanding of gender issues in science, and how to address them, including in science curriculum, and researcher training; 3) enhancing standards for assessment of institutional excellence through incorporation of gender equality as a criterion of success; and 4) more systematic and systemic adoption of best tools and practices for GEP implementation.

ACT is a Horizon 2020 project that seeks to advance gender equality at universities, research centres and research funding organisations by facilitating collaboration between experienced institutions in the implementation of gender equality plans with less experienced ones. It aims at addressing common needs and improving assessment on gender equality in HE & R&I regarding three fields: gender balance in career progression, gender balance in decision-making positions, and integrating the gender dimension into research content and teaching.

The ACT project will set-up and support an international network of Communities of Practice (CoPs) as agents to develop gender equality actions at research performing and research funding organizations in the European Research Area. For this purpose, ACT will:

• Establish the first European network of Communities of Practice by supporting 8 new or consolidated CoPs working on gender equality in HE & R&I, assess their needs, and offer opportunities to foster synergies and innovation in this field.

• Consolidate and strengthen existing infrastructure for knowledge sharing and mutual learning in the field of institutional change and gender equality across Europe (Knowledge Sharing Hub, online survey tool for gender equality audit and monitoring, and an evaluation framework for CoPs’ collaborations and activities).

• Develop an adaptable support toolkit, training materials and audio-visual resources for adopting best practices on gender equality by R&I organisations.

Despite the adverse conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the project has achieved all objectives and all deliverables have been submitted. For some tasks, the Consortium partners have performed over and above the foreseen activities and outcomes.

Considering work package 2, the main achievements concern the development of the Gender Equality and Audit Monitoring tool version 2 and its further consolidation, translation and uptake in the international gender and science community. The Co-creation toolkit equally has been updated to reflect the changing working conditions and online collaboration formats. Several workshops have been held with CoP Facilitators and others, to train participants in the GEAM tool as well as the Co-creation toolkit.

During the second reporting period, the Seed Consortium partners have consolidated their Communities of Practice working primarily via online meetings. Altogether, 8 CoPs comprising a total of 144 organizations in Europe and Latin America have been working continuously towards greater gender equality. Work has been structured according to the three thematic ERA gender priority topics of “Career advancement”, “Decision Making” and “Gender Dimension”, already established during the first reporting period. This included the organization of online discussions on GenPORT, the celebration of Matching Events during October 2020 (2 online events per ERA priority topic), and the celebration of one additional Consortium level Synthesis Event. The work of CoPs was supported by the production and dissemination of highly engaging videos and training materials.

The project has concentrated on establishing a sustainable support infrastructure for the GEAM tool and promote the Gender & Science Taxonomy and develop a Community of Practice taxonomy.

The publishing of an open access edited volume with Routledge including 12 chapters by 28 Consortium members will be an important contribution to make the ACT experience available for an academic audience as well as practitioners.