Friday, 3/31/2017
The School of Engineering
of the University of Minho (EEUM) – through the Department of Information
Systems (DSI) – joined the EQUAL-IST project, which aims at implementing
innovative practices on gender equality. The consortium counts on 9 European
entities from 8 different countries.
The EQUAL-IST: Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and
Technology Research Institutions project was created in the scope of the
European network ERCIS – European Research Centre for Information Systems. The
project aims to identify and introduce a set of good practices on gender
equality among the academic community. The initial concern of researchers was
to perceive what leads each gender – male and female – to choose the technology
area and how they evolve in this area, both academic and professionally.
“We joined a working group led by Germany and Italy because they already
had a proposal in this area of gender equality. I think we are aware of many
numbers, but we know little about what these numbers really mean”, Isabel
Ramos, professor of the DSI and project coordinator at the UMinho, explains.
The researcher reinforces that EQUAL-IST intends to lead entities to implement
strategies or best practices of gender equality and to verify if there are
structural changes based on the introduction of these strategies.
The project aims to address ERA objectives in relation to gender
equality by supporting several research institutions from different countries
in developing and implementing tailored Gender Equality Plans (GEPs). The
project combines gender mainstreaming and positive actions on three main
levels: HR practices and management processes; student services and
institutional communication; research design and delivery.
EQUAL-IST will focus on the academic environment at an early stage, but
Isabel Ramos does not exclude the possibility of exporting this same research to
companies: “If we can perceive how the professionals of both genders are
evolving in the University, we will have much more interesting content to
disseminate to the companies”, she ensures.
The kick-off meeting of EQUAL-IST took place in July 2016. The project,
coordinated by ViLabs, in Greece, and led at the UMinho by the DSI of the EEUM,
counts on a total funding of around 150 thousand euros, as part of the European
programme Horizon 2020, and runs until 2019.
+ info: https://equal-ist.eu/