horizon europe Archives - Supera Project

Beyond ticking the box: the Final conference recording & presentations are online

The SUPERA project is coming to an end and on Friday, 25th March 2022 (h. 9:30-16:30 CET) our Final conference will take place!

We are proud of our efforts and achievements on gender equality so far and we would like to take the opportunity of the closing event to have an exchange with all the committed colleagues of the gender & science community about lessons learned, promising practices and common challenges for the sustainability of gender equality actions and policies.

Join us on the 25th of March, 2022 at the SUPERA Final Conference Beyond ticking the box: sustainable, innovative and inclusive Gender Equality Plans. The event will be held in a hybrid mode: we look forward to meeting you in Madrid, at the UCM Campus Moncloa (Faculty of Medicine. Room Professor Botella), and online.

Online registration is mandatory: please find the registration form at this link.
You will be invited to choose between the in-presence and the online attendance and you will receive a reminder a few days before the event. Please don´t hesitate to contact the SUPERA Project Team if you have any enquiries: superaprojectoffice@ucm.es

CONFERENCE RECORDING & PRESENTATIONS
The conference recording is accessible via this link on the SUPERA YouTube channel.
The slided used by the speakers are accessible on Slideshare and via the dedicated page of our website.

CONFERENCE AGENDA

9.30 -10.30 Opening

Margarita San Andrés Moya, UCM Vice-Rector for Research and Transfer

Domènec Espriu, Director of the Agencia Estatal de Investigación, MCIN-AEI

Athanasia Moungou Gender Sector Unit D4-Democracy & European Values DG Research & Innovation, European Commission Presentation

10.30 – 11.30 Welcome from the SUPERA Consortium and Keynote speech: “GEPs Eligibility criteria and beyond”

Maria Bustelo, SUPERA Coordinator, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Marcela Linková, Head of the Centre for Gender and Science. Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences Presentation

11.30-12.00 Coffee Break

12.00-13.30 Round table “Stories of institutionalisation in Universities and Research Centers: inspiring practices”
Moderator: Emanuela Lombardo, UCM

Mónica Lopes – Centro de Estudos Sociais Universidade da Coimbra: Gender Mainstreaming Monitoring Structure Accountability mechanism of the GEP Presentation
Ana Belén Amil – Central European University: Increasing the representation of women as Faculty Presentation
Marta Aparicio – Universidad Complutense de Madrid: Gender Equality Nodes Network Presentation
Ester Cois – Università degli Studi di Cagliari: Institutionalisation of Gender Equality Delegate position Presentation
María Pilar Rodríguez and María Jesús Pando – Universidad de Deusto (Project Gearing Roles): Guidelines to mainstream gender in research and teaching Presentation

13.30-14.30 Lunch Break

14.30 -15.45 Round table “Sustainability of GEPs and Networks in Research Funding Organisations”
Moderator: Sophia Ivarsson, VINNOVA

Massimo Carboni – Regione Autonoma della Sardegna
Lourdes Armesto – Agencia Estatal de Investigación Presentation
Carry Hergaarden – Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Presentation
Jana Dvorackova – Technology Agency of the Czech Republic Presentation

15.45-16.00 The SUPERA RFOs network: goals and next steps
Lut Mergaert – Yellow Window Presentation
Marcela Linkova – Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences

16.00-16.25 Concluding remarks – SUPERA International Advisory Board
Jörg Müller – Open University of Catalonia, Anne Laure Humbert – Oxford Brookes Business School, Miguel Lorente – University of Granada, Nicole Huyghe – Boobook, Maxime Forest, Sciences Po Paris

16.25-16.30 Closing

Registration form

Download the poster with the Conference agenda

Workshop on gender equality plans and structural change in Horizon Europe

By Lucy Ferguson, Workshop Rapporteur

In the last face-to-face event many of us attended before the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation hosted a workshop on “Fostering institutional change through Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) and the way forward towards Horizon Europe” on 4^thMarch in Brussels. The workshop was attended by a range of participants involved in structural change projects across the EU, including project coordinators, evaluators and team members, with the aim of strengthening gender equality provisions in the future EU funding programme Horizon Europe, building on a series of co-creation and outcomes of consultation with stakeholders. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge our Italian colleagues who were unable to join in person, and connected from home, in a way that we would all come to know as normal in the months that followed. This article highlights some of the main discussions and recommendations. A full workshop report will also be published by the European Commission later this year, along with an in-depth analytical review of structural change for gender equality in research and innovation.

Opening the workshop, Jean-Eric Paquet, Director-General, DG Research and Innovation, European Commission highlighted that all public institutions will be required to design and implement a gender equality plan in order to be eligible for funding under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. Mina Stareva, Head of Sector Gender, E5-Democracy & European values, DG Research and Innovation outlined the key pillars of Horizon Europe and how provisions for gender equality have been strengthened at the level of implementation and targeted support, and invited participants to be “bold, frank, direct and ambitious” in their contributions. Invited speaker Marcela Linkova, Coordinator of the GENDERACTION project, noted that this is a very exciting time for people working on structural change, particularly for countries that are less advanced in gender equality in research and innovation.

Following in-depth discussions of key questions, recommendations were developed in three areas. In terms of implementing gender equality plans and good practices, recommendations included: embed a focus on the process in structural change projects – participation, ownership and reflexivity; spread responsibility for GEP implementation across the whole institution in order to increase accountability for successes and failures; and develop support structures for core teams in the form of time and resources, as well as make such work visible within the overall academic culture. Recommendations to further gender equality plans included: develop synergies between the Research and Innovation Framework Programme and Structural Funds; engage civil society more substantively in structural change in research and innovation, in particular in relation to SDG 5; and consider how to strategically engage the private sector in funding aspects of GEP implementation. Finally, the participants discussed how to support gender equality plans, such as: establish a Competency Centre on Gender with an integrated Helpdesk and capacity development component; and set up a Gender Equality Taskforce to facilitate regular contact between relevant actors and stakeholders.

Three over-arching take-away messages were drawn from the workshop discussions. First, the need to focus on process, not outcomes. Second, the importance of a reflexive approach. Third, the value of participation in building consensus and ownership for gender equality across an institution. Fourth, the need to explicitly acknowledge the highly political and politicised nature of structural change.

In conclusion, participants agreed that ongoing mutual learning and critical reflection – both within research and innovation and more broadly in other fields – are the key to ensuring that structural change for gender equality in Horizon Europe is transformative and sustainable.