Good practices from University of Gdańsk. How to implement gender equality plans at universities - 7 boundary conditions
From the beginning of this exciting endeavour to bring about institutional change the most important thing was to open up the official space for gender equality at the University of Gdańsk.
For past 15 years we all have been busy with individual projects and several grassroots activities undertaken by many academics and UG staff that raised awareness for gender awareness. Coordinating and partnering many EU grants have definitively helped in engaging more and more individuals and units in making equality one of the main focuses of university. Our activities gained momentum when, thanks to the STARBIOS2 project (2016–2020), we were able to trigger within institutional cooperation with specific goals and an adequate budget. Within STARBIOS2 the University of Gdańsk together with 11 partners from Europe, USA and Brazil we worked on the concept of taking into account social and ethical consequences of research (Responsible Research and Innovation, RRI). The idea of the project was to develop and implement individual action plans in selected scientific institutions conducting research in the broadly defined biological, chemical and biotechnological sciences. Our goal was to enable structural changes in the field of responsible research and innovation — and one of its fundaments pertains to achieving gender equality and raising gender awareness within academic institutions. The action plan for the University of Gdańsk was implemented at the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology University of Gdańsk and Medical University of Gdańsk (IFB). The cooperation of the aforementioned Faculty with the Faculty of Social Sciences of UG enabled the implementation of the results of expertise and the involvement of female researchers from the Faculty of Social Sciences of UG.
The reasons for the unequal distribution of power in the academic research careers are related to the different social roles expected from women and men in the society. When addressing the topic of the gender of the researcher, the category of “missed opportunities” is often mentioned in the literature (Ceci & Williams, 2011). Women face several structural barriers that deprive them of using their full potential in the world of science. Not using the full potential of the society, we are not using enough talents that exist, and hence science is missing out.
Through active participation in the implementation of equality projects financed by the European Union, as well as through conducting courses on: managing diversity in organisations, counteracting gender stereotypes, designing scientific careers or working in diverse teams, we have managed to develop seven boundary conditions for a university that need to be met, in order not to miss out talents brought by women into the world of academic institutions.
First, counteract the effects of gender stereotypes in science — ideally with training for the academic community on how to counteract biases and acquire the skills and tools to manage teams in an inclusive way. In the 1960s and 1970s, a study was conducted in the United States in which children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 18 were asked to draw a scientist — only 1% of the drawings depicted women. When this study was repeated 5 decades later, in 2016, the percentage of drawings depicting women increased from 1% to 34% (Miller et al., 2018). Such research has not been conducted in Poland, probably the result would be similar. Nevertheless, another kind of research (Makarova et al. 2019) indicates that the queen of textbooks of both primary and secondary education in Poland (and not only) is Maria Skłodowska Curie, whose contribution to the development of science has a measurable effect in the perception of the world of science by Polish girls. The “Beautiful Minds” survey created by the Program for Women and Science in 2016 confirmed the thesis that “science has a gender”. To the question “Who do you think is a scientist?” only 31% answered that “a woman”, when asked about the role model of a scientist, however, male and female respondents indicated Maria Skłodowska-Curie in second place (27% of responses, after Albert Einstein: 40% indications and before Isaac Newton: 15% indications).
Second, it is important to measure inequality in the organization in which you want to make changes. An example of this is the report that the University of Gdansk, as the first university in Poland, managed to create “Women in science. Diversity management and gender equality in social responsibility of University of Gdańsk.”. As Prof. Ewa Łojkowska states:
“The report has the ambition to set a new trend of looking at talent and science management in Poland, paying attention to the potential hidden in the diversity of gender, age, background and, very importantly, scientific diversity. Coexistence and cooperation of women and men, representatives of different scientific disciplines is an opportunity for Polish science. Summary of university resources in the form of such reports helps to plan university development strategies for the coming years” .
The findings of the report provide an insight into gender inequalities and show the potential of male and female researchers. Monitoring gender equality indicators is necessary to measure to what extent the activities carried out have a certain impact and are reflected in the quality and comfort of work in the research units (Ovseiko et al. 2019).
Third, it is important to create a detailed institutional plan for the implementation of gender equality principles with well-defined goals and outcomes, and to embody a mechanism for systematic and transparent monitoring of the implementation of the established plan and its effectiveness at all levels of the scientific career. Such a Gender Equality Plan in now being created at the University of Gdańsk. Its aim, as well as the aim of similar plans at other universities, is to create a whole system of activities, starting from educational activities counteracting stereotypes, through building clear career paths, to monitoring gender equality indicators which is necessary for the diversity management system to actually bring the expected results — scientific progress. Announcing that gender equality is important to the institution is an important action, but it is part of the university’s strategy, and so must be followed by specific goals and actions taken to achieve them.
Fourth, it is necessary to involve the entire academic community, including, and perhaps especially, men, in supporting this type of change. Worldwide, greater equality for women means progress and benefits for all — but it can also mean new challenges in mobilizing men for gender equality — an important area of action for the education and science sector.
The global, organizational, family, and individual benefits of gender equality affect both women and men (Holter, 2014). Despite growing awareness of the benefits of gender equality (Holter, 2014), women have been and continue to be the main drivers of gender equality strategies and movements — including at the institutional level. In contrast, men — who hold higher status positions and roles in most organisations — are less likely to think of gender equality as something beneficial to themselves (Greig et al., 2000). Gender equality programs and campaigns mostly refer to men implicitly, as a group that has more power than women, rather than explicitly involving them in the process of implementing them and benefiting from gender equality achievements. This may be related, among other things, to the fact that men do not see the gender equality movements as benefiting them. Moreover, the increasing presence of women in power structures may be perceived to be at the expense of men — the more power women gain, the more power is lost by the men in whose hands the power used to be. This way of viewing social relations is called “belief in a zero-sum game” — the more women have access to power and money — the less men have it (cf. Kosakowska-Berezecka et al., 2020; Ruthig et al. 2017). This type of perception focuses on competition for resources and makes it difficult to develop win-win solutions. Without the involvement of both women and men in gender equality efforts, gender equality will not be achieved and thus diversity management will not be as effective as it could be. One way to involve both women and men in gender equality activities is to jointly build strategies to do so — including through the implementation of gender equality plans.
Fifth, it is important to educate young people and organize support from mentors and mentees. As a result of the STARBIOS2 project, three subjects have been permanently included in the curriculum of the Biotechnology course: “The Role of Gender in Research (RRI) and Scientific Careers” (1st level), “Preparation for active work in a diverse team” (2nd level) and “How to become a responsible scientist” (3rd level). There is a lack of awareness in academia that it is not women, but the system of conducting research and managing scientific institutions that is not fully compatible with combining family and professional roles, that is another of the barriers standing in the way of full scientific success.
The world of science gives the impression of a very flexible world for combining family and professional roles, but this is a double-edged weapon — women in science need to be like that ‘Super Woman’ — like Marie Skłodowska Curie. This is an unmatched role model; all the female Scholars we interviewed had very high standards of work and huge expectations of themselves, while thinking of themselves as ‘not a role model’. In addition to systemic solutions that support women, there is a lack of female mentors. There is also a lack of male mentors to show other men their committed fatherhood and balancing of academic and family careers.
Sixth, it is important to “be credible and reliable” at the level of most visible behavior — that is, language. In our view, this manifests itself in communicative consistency. Therefore, we support the use of solutions that influence, for example, the promotion of equality language — in this case, feminized or remembering the feminized version (e.g. in legal acts or university statutes). The greater presence of women in the language — through the use of feminatives so female endings in case of languages that are gender transparent such as Polish, German or Italian, can influence young women’s decision to choose such a path of education or career, and women with higher education motivates them to obtain more degrees in their scientific careers. We, as a society, should support the development of women in these fields so that we do not waste opportunities to increase the importance of Polish science in the world.
Seventh, it is important to share good practices and history of our successes outside of academia. As experts involved in university and interuniversity activities, we give interviews in the media, speak at scientific conferences, inspire companies and corporations, and implement new projects related to gender equality awareness in collaboration with NGOs and business partners. One of them is the ResBios project (Responsible Research and Innovation Grounding Practices in Biosciences) funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. It started its activities in January 2020 and will be implemented for three years in a consortium formed by 12 partners from 11 countries, coordinated by Tor Vergata University from Rome. The selected partners of the STARBIOS2 project, who have already implemented RRI action plans leading to structural changes in their institutions, as experienced organizations will take on the role of “mentors” for the “newcomer” partners with advice, examples and support.
ResBios UG Team:
PhD Magdalena Żadkowska,
PhD Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka Associate Professor,
Prof. Ewa Łojkowska
Marta Dziedzic
Izabela Raszczyk
