Main Discussion Thread: Gender Balance in Decision-Making

Welcome to this GenPORT e-discussion on gender balance in decision-making in research organisations. We will focus today both on research performing organisations: universities and research institutions and centres, and research funding organisations. My name is Liisa Husu, I am Professor of Gender Studies at Örebro University, Sweden, and leader of the GenPORT Swedish team. We have several experts joining our discussion, highlighting the topic based on either their research expertise or their expertise and involvement in gender equality policies and activities in funding organisations. The experts will introduce themselves during the discussion.

Women continue to be underrepresented in decision-making globally as well as in European societies, not only in research organisations we are focusing today, but in most sectors of society. Equality in decision-making was one of the five key areas of action in the European 2010-2015 strategy for equality between women and men, and continues to be one of the priorities in the Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality 2016-2019 of the European Commission.

In European research organisations the slow change from male dominance in decision-making has been amply demonstrated by the She Figures data on gender and science: even if women currently account for nearly half of European Ph.D. recipients, only a fifth of grade A, top-level academics, are women. Currently 85% of heads of institutions with the capacity to deliver PhDs are men in EU-28, an improvement from 90% of male heads in 2010. Variations across Europe is noteworthy, from no female heads of institutions in Luxembourg, with under 10% in Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Romania, to 50% in Sweden. Important decision-making positions include national scientific boards, most of them boards of national funding bodies. Within the EU-28, women currently make up 28 % of scientific and administrative board members, and only 22 % of board leaders.

In the first part of the e-discussion we would like to have a closer critical look at the concepts used when addressing the issue of gender in decision-making. This state of the art has been described in various ways in research, in policy and in equality interventions: as women’s underrepresentation, as lack of gender balance, as a diversity issue, as male dominance in decision-making, as gender inequality. It would be interesting to hear views on the implications and problems using these different concepts, for research, policy and action. What do we mean when we speak about gender balance? In the second part of discussion, we will address issues related to implementation, and resistance encountered when raising the issue of gender in decision-making and implementation in different contexts. You are welcome to share your views and experiences and comment on these topics or related issues. I am looking forward to a lively discussion! 

Our discussion will start at 10:00 Central European Time.  

I will start with an introduction. I’m Jeff Hearn, Professor Emeritus, Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; Senior Professor, Gender Studies, Örebro University, Sweden, and part of the Örebro team in the GenPORT project; and Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield, UK. I’ve been involved in these issues a long time, and especially interested in men and masculinities in work, organisations and science, and how men can contribute to greater gender equality and gender justice.

So, what is gender balance? Well, several things immediately come to mind. First, in general greater gender balance in decision-making in science is certainly to be aimed for, in terms of bringing together more collective knowledge and expertise, putting women’s and feminist concerns more fully on scientific agendas, developing more democratic processes, and so on. Focusing on gender balance is a way of thinking and acting to counteract the huge problem, more or less across countries, of men’s domination of science, technology and innovation, R&D, universities, professoriates and rectorates, research leadership, funding and research performing and research funding organisations. In this situation, the 40% rule in most Nordic countries on the representation of women and men on the boards of research councils and other public bodies and committees would be a good start.

But, is ‘gender balance’ really so simple, and is it the complete answer? As far as I can see, at the same time as agreeing with and promoting gender balance, the term ‘gender balance’ in decision-making is perhaps not really quite right; it can suggest a natural, heterosexual complementarity between women and men. Gender balance may also suggest that all we need is counting the numbers of women and men. It may even play down other differences both among women, men and further genders (queer, intersex, transgender, non-binary), and also differences other than gender, such as age, class, racialisation and ethnicity. It would be a mistake to see greater gender balance in the numbers of women automatically producing better decisions in every situation. The evidence on this is more diverse. And moreover, in some situations it may be women who are much better qualified to decide than adding in a few men who are not knowledgeable on the issue. I would prefer to think and act on ‘gender equality’ or ‘gender equity’ or better still ‘gender quality’ or even ‘gender excellence’ in decision-making. These policy and practice questions are partly about the fair representation of women, men and further genders, but also about knowledge, expertise and awareness on gender issues and gender power.

<p>I am a researcher of gender in organizations at Uppsala University, and the coordinator of the FP7 GERI Project FESTA, which just came to its end. We had two work packages, one on formal and one on informal decision making. The informal one was by far the most interesting - and showing the most diversity of how differently things are perceived in different European countries. The attitude to etworks and informa decision making varied hugely, and that would also influence the way in which gender bias in networks, institutional micro-politics etc is dealt with. Gender balance in decision making bodies, meaning a reasonably even split between women and men is in no way a guarantee of gender balance in decision making, for several reasons. However, it is an important starting point in contexts where there is a huge male dominance, just to start shaking the structures that are taken for granted. But that is just the first step. I would also make an alert on decision makers that we as academics tend to forget: in the increasingly managerialistic structures in some European coutries there are a number of people who are not part of the academic hierarchy (professors,deans etc), but still may have a huge impact on how research is done.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

Let’s start our e-discussion! Welcome all to share your views and experiences!

Thank you, Jeff Hearn, for opening up with the critical question on the term gender balance, and the potentially problematic implications of using the term. I can see that several of our experts are now online, and I would like to invite them to introduce themselves and send their comments.

Hello everyone, I’m Charlotta Niemistö and I currently work as project leader at Hanken School of Economics, department of Management and Organisation. My research interests are around work and non-work, work and family, gender, age/generations, management and inequalities/privilege. My PhD thesis (2011) was about family policies, gender equality and corporate level policies for reconciling work and family in Finland. Since then, I have worked around questions of work wellbeing, family and gender. My current work in the Academy of Finland (Council for Strategic Research) funded project Social and Economic Sustainability of Future Working Life (WeAll) focuses on managing boundaries between work and non-work, coping at work, inequalities and intersectionalities in work organisations.
I am a member of the Secretariat in GODESS Research institute, a research and development collaboration between Hanken School of Economics; Jyväskylä University, School of Business and Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Stockholm, Sweden; The Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability Research Unit, GLASS, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; and Sobey School of Business doctoral program, St Mary’s University, Halifax, Canada.
I am also a member of the Board at Hanken School of Economics, this is my second term. In the Hanken Board, we actually have female majority.

Welcome to our expert Minna Salminen from Uppsala University! The issue of informal decision-making and different roles it plays in different European contexts is highly relevant for our discussion. 

Good morning everybody! My name is Anne-Charlott Callerstig and I currently work as a postdoc researcher at the Centre for feminist social studies (CFS), Örebro University. I am very pleased to be participating in this e-discussion with all of you and will give you some information on my previous experiences to start with followed by some input to the discussion!

About me
I have a PhD in gender studies and my background is within political science. I also have a background as an equality practitioner, one example being that I was employed by the Swedish Equality Ombudsman for ten years. I am very interested in policy implementation issues and in particular in connection to equality policies (in its broadest sense). I have been studying implementation of different equality strategies, and in particular the strategy of gender mainstreaming, in different types of organizations, both public and private, and within, and through the lens of different policy fields/business areas/professions examples being within areas such as education, rescue services, innovation policy and social services. During the autumn of 2016 I was engaged by Linköping University to conduct a preliminary study in order to prepare the work with gender mainstreaming within the university with focus on its core activities according to the Government mission to enhance the work with gender mainstreaming at all Swedish Universities 2016-2019. I work most of the times with an interactive research approach, i.e. studying together with participants and not on them and have in particular focused on and used different dilemmas that arise in the implementation of equality policies as a base for learning and developing the practical work.

My current research
Currently I am engaged in three different research projects, one H2020-financed project – GEDII (Gender and Diversity Impact – Improving research and innovation through gender diversity)– that, to put it simply, studies the relation between gender diversity in research team and research output. www.gedii.eu. The second one is a newly started project financed by VINNOVA in Sweden where we study the pre-requisites for “norm critical” innovation processes from an organizational perspective in and together with Volvo Trucks in Gothenburg Sweden. The third is also a new project were I together with prof Liisa Husu will study the research grant funding process within in one large funding organization in Sweden

Discussion input
From an implementation perspective and in relation to the topics of this discussion, I am currently (and always) very interested in how the implementation process regarding equality polices, within research organizations, differs or are similar, compared to other organisations/policy fields, why there are differences and what the policy implications for such differences are. I have found some interesting previous research raising organizational aspects such as an example the importance of informal power structures in academia that make personal relationships and networks important for success, and the existence of "veto-culture" which means that control mechanisms that is not seen as legitimate can be opposed. Also, strong local autonomy principle has been highlighted where both faculties, departments and individual researchers stand strong against the management and that top-down initiatives are doomed to fail if they do not have local support (Maurer 2010). In particular, the conceived connection between gender mainstreaming and neoliberal governance principles or as a political goal has been highlighted as a particular challenge for gender mainstreaming work within the Academy where also gender researchers and equality officers can oppose the work (Keisu and Carbine 2014). Another point is the existing, and seemingly huge!, gap between high flying standards/self image/what is said to be done (formal rules) and what is actually going on (rules in practice) (eg Ahmed 2012).

Concerning gender balance or ie promoting equal participation of women and men in decision-making positions. I think it is interesting to discuss how we can (can we?) measure or define “gender balance” or “equality” and in connection - what do we understand as gender balance? In Gedii and in order to expand the notion from simply counting heads, we work with a threefold definition of gender diversity; 1) Disparity- differences in power/social stratification/equality, 2) Separation – differences in opinion/position/beliefs and 3) Variety- differences in knowledge/competence/experiences ie (Harrison & Klein, 2007)

But the whole topic of “measuring diversity” and “increasing diversity” as a goal opens up to a wider discussion on the practice and research carried out within the field of equality or diversity management and perhaps that what Garford and Kerr (2009) has called “an uncomfortable juxtaposition of economistic and democratic goals within Gender and Science politics” or “pain-free politics” ( where the focus easily becomes upon removing “hinders” or “barriers” but where the underlying norm is left unquestioned . We have discussed the problems inherent in diversity management such as the sometimes uncritical usage of diversity categories or attributes that are seen as something existing a priori/fixed/stable (rather than as relational or processes) and that can be studied or managed in order to produce desirable outcomes for organizations in one of the research reviews we have made in Gedii but the tension or dilemmas that arise in equality policies and in particular how to handle them in policy development/application is something I would like to discuss further.

Welcome to our expert Charlotta Niemistö from Hanken School of Economics. In addition to your research on gender, you look at this topic also from the perspective of a university Board member, in a school which has a female Vice Chancellor.

I think Minna Salminen makes 2 really important points: the formal is not the same as the informal. The two aspects can work in harmony or in contradiction, often, though not always, in reaffirming current gender arrangements and hierarchies.

The second key point, especially in the current (neoliberal, managerialist) climate, is the increasingly important place of non-academics in these processes; this can also be extended to the development of a group of academics who fairly early in their career (sometimes not a very illustrious research career) switch to become managers. This is also linked to some universities adopting processes for senior appointments, such as Deans and the Rectorate, for much longer terms or even for life, rather than on a short-term basis or by election. Also, with moves to so-called university autonomy in many countries, rectors often have much greater power to decide/direct research priorities and other matters, sometimes through quite unscientific/unilateral decision processes. For those who are interested in these developments, the Czech Gender Studies journal,  Gender, rovné přiležitotosti, výzkum [Gender, Equal Opportunities, Research], is publishing in the summer this year a special issue on universities in neoliberal times, following the RINGS conference in Prague 2015.

Dear all,

I am very happy to participate in this discussion and it is very nice to e-meet you! This is Vasia Madesi from Greece, I have a major degree in Political Science with a MSc degree in Political Theory and Philosophy at the faculty of Political Sciences of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. I have worked as a Research Assistant at the University and I am now communication manager at the EQUAL-IST project which aims at introducing structural changes to enhance gender equality in Information Sciences and Technology (IST) research institutions.I have a particular interest in European studies, populism, discourse theory, comparative politics, political communications and contemporary political theory. Interested in cross-cultural dialogue, I am in the Soliya training program to obtain the United Nations Advanced Facilitation Training Certification to empower young adults to engage with difference constructively.

At EQUAL-IST project https://equal-ist.eu/, we are in a starting point where we design Gender Equality Plans and we are very much interested in gender balance in decision making. I hope that I will read very interesting views, today and I will report them back to the team!

Thank you!

Welcome to our expert Anne-Charlott Callerstig from Örebro University, and thank you for sharing your insights on dilemmas of "measuring" gender balance.

Now we have two of our experts with long experience in research funding organisations online, Dr. Maya Widmer, previously from Swiss National Science Foundation, and Dr. Carl Jacobsson, from the Swedish Research Council. Both have also participated in European reviews on gender challenges in research funding. I invite you to share your views on gender balance in decision-making in the funding body landscape.

Hello everyone, I'm a senior advisor at the Swedish Research Council. I work with gender equality questions and gender equality monitoring as well as with other analyses of research financing, research personnel and research output (e.g. bibliometric analyses).
I agree with Minna (I believe) that you have to consider gender balance in top positions as well, typically the Grade A professors. In Sweden we have more than 50% women among HEI vice-chancellors, but the women are only 25% of the Grade A professors.

We should strive for at least 40% women in top positions.
Or at least, strive for the same share of women professors as the share of women in the field overall (there are 40% women on positions requiring a PhD in Swedish HEIs. Outside of Natural Sciences and Engineering the share of women is 49%).

Welcome Carl Jacobsson to our e-discussion. Indeed, the Swedish case is very particular, with highest proportion of women among Vice Chancellors (50%) in Europe, but only EU-average level of women at the full professor level.

Several of the comments in this discussion highlight the need to unpack, reflect on and complicate the notions of "gender balance" and "decision making". A very useful excercise.

My name is Maya Widmer. Until September 2016 I worked as Head of Gender Equality in Research at the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF. Since 2004 I have been a member of the Helsinki Group HG. The HG works now in subgroups. One of this subgroup is engaged in guidance to facilitate the implementation of targets to promote gender equality in research and innovation.
After leaving the SNSF for early retirement I work now as an independent senior advisor.

From my experience in the SNSF:
Gender balance in decision-making bodies at the SNSF has been an issue for years, not an easy one, even if only counting heads of two sexes. Since 2010 the proportion of women in the Research Council did not raise over 23%. Last year for the first time the SNSF’s Presiding Board of RC was gender balanced (50/50%).

I am still trying to catch up with the ongoing discussion.

Welcome our expert Maya Widmer to the e-discussion. Both your organisation and Carl Jacobsson's organisation have actively been engaged in gender equality promotion for years. Now we have all our experts online. Welcome also all other participants to join and pose questions and comments.

Good morning, everyone!
Let me introduce myself first - I work as a senior adviser in the secretariat of the Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research. As a polical scientist with a long background trying to promote good implementation of anti-discrimination and equality legislation, I find the subject today of great interest. The Committee I work for is appointed every four years by the Ministry of Education and Research. Our mandate concerns both the representation of women and ethnic minorities in top academic positions - but also the integration of gender and ethnic diversity in research (most of you are familiar with Integrating Gender Analysis into Research). Our committee meets several institutions every year to discuss how universities, colleges and research institutions are actually working with gender balance and the other issues I mentioned above. We also have seminars and workshops where leaders in our field participate. This gives us a good overview over how gender and ethnic diversity are discussed. This year, we have seen how gender issues are often put aside in times of transition and restructuring. Most institutions are aware of the challenges regarding the low amount of women in science and at professor levels. But in the day to day decision-making processes regarding innovation, publication, internationalisation or long term strategies for research, gender/diversity issues rarely are broached. Gender is in its own little box, brought out when gender balance among professors, the action plan for equality or the annual report figures are on the agenda. It should be noted that there are exceptions, though.

a couple of things, inclusivity, like diversity, has become a popular term, and both can be useful, even if they have limitations - as Minna Salminen noted, inclusion into what? a male norm?? So you can have inclusion and diversity without equality and with inequality. Equity, both gender equity and equity more generally, is used a lot in some parts of the world, for example, South Africa. It conveys fairness, and so incorporates aspects of equality, inclusion and diversity. But, to repeat, we have to consider all these terms and their uses in their context and also the current climate, which as noted in some important ways is facilitating gender and other inequalities and exclusions.  

On the question of decision-making itself, as well as the formal and informal distinction, I think there may be some differences to consider around the decision-making seen in terms of appropriate processes (e.g. fair representation, how representation is decided, reasonable time schdules, proper ethical behaviour in evaluation, the giving of full and proper scientific feedback), and in terms of content (e.g. who has the expertise to know about an area of science, to decide priorities in a field). I often say to colleagues one shouldn't try to be 'too clever' in research proposals, as if you do there is a good chance that at least one person in the decision processes will not understand the proposal, and so you are thus rejected. Sometimes in research funding organisations these two aspects of process and content are somewhat separated, so that some people make decisions in their scientific evaluations, and then others, who may have little specialist knowledge, have oversight and make the final decisions on funding. Gender is obviously relevant in both arenas.

These issues get even more complex in multinational decision-making processes, such at the European or Nordic level, where, for example, there may be different gender hierarchies within and between countries, or not all (gendered) national representatives have equal power, and some countries tend to dominate decision-making.

I wonder if others have seen this short article that Nielsen, Schiebinger et al have written recently. http://www.pnas.org/content/114/8/1740.full.pdf

Even though the main thrust of the article is about diverse research teams, it also is about how to create an institutional framework to allow such diversity to produce the dividends of a heterogenous set of researchers. This is very much the responsibility of all leaders in the chain - research leaders, institute (or other unit) leaders, deans etc. Here is a quote:
Recruiting women is not enough: Carefully designed policies and dedicated leadership allow scientific organizations
to harness the power of gender diversity for collective innovations and discoveries. Since Kif works with ethnic diversity as well, its worth mentioning that these arguments are transferrable to ethnic minorities - whether international scholars, migrants or other minorities.

This is confirmed by research on implicit bias. Leaders need to be educated and aware to actively promote equality and create a climate that allows a diverse team to work at its best. But the process of recruitment to achieve gender balance at the top is slow, and that means women at the top are often in a minority.

My question to the others is - do you think the primary focus should be on increasing numbers or building leaders competence as a strategy to increase gender balance in decision-making in research?

It was nice to be with you. I'm not tired of the discussion, just leaving for another meeting. Have a good discussion!

Ella Gosh posed an important question that would be interesting to hear your views on -  should the focus be on increasing numbers of women in decision-making, or building leaders competence, as a strategy to increase gender balance in decision-making in research?

Good morning everyone. My name is Alexandra Bitusikova and I am a member of the GenPORT consortium. I am an associate professor in social anthropology and Vice-Rector for Research at Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. Since last year I am a Slovak member of the Helsinki Group. The HG now works (among other things) on Guidance to facilitate the implementation of guiding targets - and gender balance in decision-making positions is a crucial part of the guidance. In addition, in May 2017 a kick-off meeting of a new H2020 project GENDERACTION will take place in Prague (coordinated by the Centre for Gender and Science, Prague) in which the topic of gender balance in leadership will be addressed, too. Thank you for your inspiring ideas and views – very useful for our work.

Good morning. As a researcher (not of the issues under discussion today) working in a British university, I’m particularly struck by Anne-Charlott’s earlier comments on the gap between formal rules and practice, and on instances where underlying norms remain unchallenged, even as attempts are made to remove barriers.

I’d very much welcome others’ thoughts on the need for those of us working within research organisations – as individuals? under the banner of a (semi-)formal group of some kind? – to challenge instances where practice diverges from policy/best practice.

Could a scrutiny role, operating at the local level, prove useful? And if so, what should it look like? Do examples already exist that might provide inspiration for others?

here are two extracts I copied down last night from the article:

“Following 60 interdisciplinary teams of more than 500 scientists and engineers across a variety of disciplines, Aparna Joshi shows that women more often than men accurately recognize the expertise of fellow team members. Based on two surveys—one gathering data about the participants’ work-related and educational background, the other asking participants to evaluate fellow team members’ research expertise—Joshi finds that women are more likely to emphasize educational qualifications when evaluating expertise, whereas men tend to be distracted by irrelevant cues, such as gender.” (Joshi A 2014. By whom and when is women’s expertise recognized? The interactive effects of gender and education in science and engineering teams. Adm Sci Q 25(2):202–239.)

“Based on career information of more than 2,000 United States life scientists, Laurel Smith-Doerr (9), for example, finds that women are nearly eight times more likely to lead research projects in biotech firms with flat job-ladders than in more hierarchical academic and pharmaceutical settings.” (Smith-Doerr L 2004. Women’s Work: Gender Equality vs. Hierarchy in the Life Sciences, Lynne Rienner, Boulder, CO.)

Reducing hierarchies is a good idea re gender equity. The question of flatter hierarchies and gender equality policy also came up in some research I conducted with Anne Kovalainen and Teemu Tallberg on the largest Finnish companies some while ago; I think this is a very fruitful angle:

Gender Divisions and Gender Policies in Top Finnish Corporations, Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, Helsinki, 2002. Available at: https://helda.helsinki.fi/dhanken/bitstream/handle/10227/241/57-951-555…

In my experience increasing gender balance is only possible if you have a policy and strategy which is supported by the leaders. The easiest way of course is to have a respective regulation on national level (i.e. Spain, Austria).

A very good question: Should the focus be on increasing numbers of women in decision-making, or building leaders competence, as a strategy to increase gender balance in decision-making in research?

In my opinion, the second option is even more important. I work(ed) with many rectors or vice-rectors - both male and female - and they did not differ (at least in Central Europe) in their approach towards gender equality. If a woman becomes a rector, that does not necessarily mean she is aware of gender equality - on the contrary, these female leaders are often more hostile to the topic than men. Building leaders competences (including gender awareness) seems to be very important.

There are several topics opened up in the discussion, please feel free to continue to comment on these (note you can comment a post directly with using reply at the bottom of the post). The issue of how do we understand gender balance in decision making, and what terms to use, is very important and not simple, as highlighted by this discussion.

Now I would also like to open up the second main topic of our e-discussion - and invite you to address and comment on the topic of implementation and resistance encountered when trying to promote gender balance/equal representation in research organisations.

Resistance against implementation of equal representation/gender balance in decision-making is sometimes voiced from women scientists in very male-dominated disciplinary areas. They argue that equal representation demands at different decision-making bodies put a heavier burden on them than their male colleagues, time away from their research and teaching. Would be interesting if you have comments on how this dilemma is handled in different contexts.

I think I run a great risk of "preaching to the choir" in the following comment, but anyway:

Right now, I think a great challenge to gender balance in top positions is the perception of meritocracy existing in the HEIs. (That is: the appointment procedures are objective and fair already, since meritocracy reigns.)
The work for gender equality is then seen as something which is promoting of less qualified women over more qualified men.

Dear all,

I am Lidia Arroyo, researcher at Open University of Catalonia and a member of the GenPORT team.

This is a really great e-discussion and it is very enriching to go in depth on the concept of gender balance and their implications.

With regard to the issue that Liisa has raised on the strategies and obstacles when implementing gender balance, I think that this is connected with the issue that Ella Ghosh has introduced about whether increase the number of women or compenteces of leaders.

As Maya Widmer I consider that the main goal is to assure that the leader positions integrate a gender perspective in the decision with regard to both in the strategic decision on the contents of the researcha and in the organisation of work. And this issue could be carried out by both men and women.

I think when a gender-sensitive person is the top leader of an organisation the obstacles to achieve gender balance and gender equality are reduced. But when there a manager or a few workers wants to implement gender equality measures but they do not have the support of the top manager positions, they have difficulties to be achieve this. To prevent this practices, is important to count on a critic mass of women and men with this gender inclusive perspective in organisations.

The main question is how can we promote that top leader positions include this gender perspective?

Thank you!

Thank you very much for the interesting insights.

Our time is up and I would like to thank our experts and all of you for an interesting discussion, it certainly should continue at different forums! We are going to use the input from the discussion in updating the GenPORT policy briefs, and hopefully you all can benefit from the ideas, insights and resources mentioned in the discussion in your own work. All the best from GenPORT and Örebro University!