Europeanisation of a national GECAS - Athena SWAN - Concept Scenario 3 - 12:00-13:00

Hello and welcome to our third discussion on the feasibility of Europeanising a national GECAS (Athena SWAN) as a scenario developed in the frame of the CASPER project. We look forward to a rich and invigorating e-conversation, to bring our reflection forward.

My name is Agostina Allori. I am a gender equality consultant at Yellow Window and a core team member for the CASPER Project. I also work in other EU funded projects in the field of research and academia, such as SUPERA, Gearing Roles, Gender SMART and the Gender Equality Academy.

We are happy to have two gender experts with us this morning: Inés Sánchez de Madariaga (from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain) and Clemens Striebing (from Fraunhofer Centre for Responsible Research and Innovation, Germany).

In 5 minutes, I will leave the e-floor to them for a short introduction followed by their initial comments and remarks.

I am Clemens Striebing and I am working as a Senior Researcher in international and national projects, in which I deal with gender equality and diversity in organizations, especially in the research and innovation system. Another focus of my work is research on the transfer of scientific knowledge to business, society and politics.

I myself am more in favor of the establishment of a European scheme instead of the Europeanization of a national scheme. However, in the coming discussions, ATHENA Swan will be the guiding reference. I believe ATHENA Swan has the role of a door-opener and role model.

I dare to say that without the success of ATHENA Swan, the CASPER project would not have existed and we would not be thinking about a European gender equality scheme now. However, it must be critically questioned what exactly the success of ATHENA Swan actually consists of. I believe that ATHENA Swan is considered successful primarily because it was implemented by a large number of organizations. But that says nothing about the effectiveness of the program.

There are now a number of evaluation studies on ATHENA Swan. The results are mixed, but tend to be positive. From my point of view, the quantitative study by Xiao et al. (2019) and an overview Lancet article by Rosser et al. (2019) stand out. The key learning, in my view, is that specific predictions about the impact of Athena SWAN on individual research organizations are difficult to make. The interplay of the strategy implemented depending on the organization and its contextual factors (such as leadership commitment, resources, staff turnover) is too complex. In my view, however, the fundamental added value of ATHENA Swan is to stimulate the debate on gender equality and to deepen and focus it through substantive impulses. In other words, if many people in an organization think a lot about gender equality, something useful will come out of it in the end. I don't think you can have this organizational investment and commitment any cheaper than with ATHENA Swan. But it can't be more expensive either.

To all the participants, feel free to contribute with your reflections/thoughts about this scenario. 

Thank you, of course! I hope my argument about national context is not too polemic. But I think it makes the discussion more interesting, if there is some pepper in the soup ;-)

A must-have, in my view, is ATHENA Swan‘s three-class system (bronce, silver, gold). This system is strong because it shows quality differences between research institutions without establishing a competitive and overly complex ranking by using too precise a metric. At the same time, the three-class system allows for low-threshold entry and creates continuous motivation to move up to a higher class or to maintain the class achieved. This effectively brings the equality policy to life on paper.

ATHENA Swan is seen as a weakness in that it is tailored to the Anglo-Saxon context. Personally, I am an opponent of a scheme that is too highly adaptable to specific contexts. Gender equality is a universal value and implies nothing different in the UK than in Germany, Poland or Greece. The fact that equality is regressing, especially in a number of Eastern European research institutions, is no coincidence and should not be diluted by context specificity. If effective equality in research and innovation requires the East to become more Western, then so be it (sorry if this is a bit polemical. I write this as someone who comes from a former Soviet state).

The main weakness of ATHENA Swan, according to Tzanakou and Pearce, seems to me to be that it is very situational at which point and for which group of people the effort associated with ATHENA Swan accumulates. The narrow thematic focus of ATHENA Swan is also problematic. Here, the debate in the Anglo-Saxon world is already much more advanced. When we talk about an inclusive work climate for researchers, we also have to talk about the masculine work culture that prevails in many workplaces. Monitoring the work climate as well as structural sexism should be mandatory components of any gender equality scheme. The lack of gender as a research dimension is also outdated here and an integration would fit well into the new regulations of the European Commission for applying for Horizon Europe projects!

To conclude on a positive note, a cool element of ATHENA Swan is the mix of self-assessment and peer-review in the evaluation of scheme applications.

I agree with the previous post: a European wide certificate should not be built based on a national scheme as the Athena Swan. The UK university system within which the Athena Swan has been designed and implemented, as well as wider issues of British public policy and administration, are too far from the realities of most if not all European countries.

A European wide certification or recognition system should be designed and built from scratch.

I disagree with the assertion in the previous post that without the Athena Swan this exercise of designing a European wide certificatation system would not be happening. I was present at the initial moment aboyt ten years ago when the EC launched the idea of developing this scheme and the Athena Swan was already there, but it was not in any means the reason nor the rational nor the basis on which the EC started this path in which the CASPER project is now of contributing to the design of a European wide scheme for certification of GEPs in research institutions 

Hi Clemens, Thanks for your comments. I think it's interesting that the article by Xiao et al. (2019) when talking about outcomes - they cite the 'increase in female representation'- no doubt an important part of the gender (in) equality puzzle - but not the only element. Regaring GEPs aiming to effect institutional change - as we know 'outcomes' are difficult to measure.. This will be the case however for all scenarios.....but I think it's really important to not 'reduce' gender (in)equalities in R&I to issues of women's representation.... 

Hello everyone. Athena SWAN is a mentionned already in the process of internationalisation with new countries adopting it. As it is indeed in itself an ambitious scheme with a reputation preceeding it, I am wondering about the initial will for 'less advanced' institutions, or institutions with less resources, to sign up to an EU-extended Athena SWAN. Which relates here again to branding I guess.

A privatized system as the Athena Swan, additionally licensed by a UK (non-European) private company, does not seem to be a good idea for a European gender equality policy in a field that in many countries is mostly in the public sector.

I do not find acceptable this privatization of public policy, additionally grounded in a non-European organization

This is public policy. IT should, as a minimum, be under the control of a European organization.

Then there is the discussion as to whether this should or should not be privatised.

When considering the possibility of this being managed bu a private institution, careful consideration should be given as to what kind of institution this could be, and controled by whom and how.

Then there is the issue of funding. Who is paying for the organization and management of the scheme? Public of private funds? the universities themselves?  What is the incentive for universities to pay for this? Athena Swan relies on payments from universities themselves, I do not think this is an option in most European countries.

This is a general question to the organisers. Is there a possibility of developing a hybrid of the three scenarios which for example might take something positive from each so, for example, from the Athena Swan  (i.e. three stage classification system - Bronze, Silver, Gold) and then bring this together with a more comprehensive approach (scenario 1) e.t.c... 

Higher education is motly public in Europe, unlike in the UK.

The uK has a tradition of privatising so many things, which is very different from the rest of us in Europe.

I think a European sh¡cheme should be manages by either a public institution or a semi.public institution.

IT should in no way be managed by a private organization and even less by a non European one.

I doubt that the big important European public universities would let themselves be evaluated by some organization that is not itself of similar standing

This should be manages by an organizations let say of a standing and reputations such as the ERC, or simmilar that we could think of.

No way a UK non-profit can evaluate for instance ETH or Humboldt University. This is not serious

The Commission could do this, but it would be highly inefficient and burocratic

Absolutely Jorg, I totally agree, any association with Athena Swan should be avoided.

This has to be designed as a European thing. European, European. 

Thank you all for your participation. We will need to bring this e-discussion to a close but the thread will remain active for a week, during which we encourage you to share further. Concluding remarks will then be posted.

All the best,

Agostina. 

I am surprised the CAsper project is even considering building on the Athena Swan, at this stage of the project. Has nobody thought before I did about the political implications of this before?