These challenges concern the persistent barriers and constraints to the recruitment, advancement and mobility of women in the European scientific system, the lack of women in decision-making, and the limited integration of the gender dimension in research programmes and content.
GENDER-NET is the first European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) to be dedicated to the promotion of gender equality through structural change in research institutions, as well as to the integration of sex and gender analysis in research.
GENDER-NET brings together a balanced partnership of thirteen national programme owners from across Europe and North America – i.e. ministries, national research-funding agencies or national organisations – with a shared commitment to gender equality and synergistic expertise in gender and science issues.
Based on the mutual opening of their respective programmes and policies, partners have joined forces to carry out joint assessments of existing national/regional initiatives, to define priority areas for transnational collaborations, and to implement a selection of strategic joint activities, in an effort to reduce fragmentation across the ERA and help reach a critical mass of ministries, research funders, universities and research institutions across Europe engaging in the development and implementation of gender equality plans or related initiatives, and requesting gendered contents in research programmes and projects.
The GENDER-NET project has started on October 15th, 2013, and will run for 3 years.