Gender Summit (#GS4EU) will explore Europe’s new plan for gender equity in science

Gender is now a criterion for grant funding in the new EU Framework Programme: Horizon 2020

Society today faces many challenges that require imaginative and sustainable solutions, so it is timely to bring women to the heart of research and innovation. An EU initiative and Gender Summit take a new approach to accomplishing this longtime goal.

For the first time in the history of European research programs, gender has been identified as a criterion of success in the new European Union Framework Programme for Research & Innovation, Horizon 2020. Not only are applicants for funding encouraged to promote equal opportunities and ensure a balanced participation of women and men at all levels in research teams and management structures, but projects are expected to integrate gender dimension across a wide range of topics.

In the Horizon 2020 work program, the gender dimension is explicitly integrated in more than 100 topics of the 610 making up the current Work Programme, spread across 13 program, including health, environment, transport, food, water and energy. This “crosscutting” approach is a major departure from the EU’s previous approach of improving women’s participation by promoting structural changes in science institutions.

The goal of the 4th Gender Summit – Europe, from June 30 to July 1 in Brussels, is to expand the gender in science discourse to include this “crosscutting” perspective: what it means and how it can be effectively implemented in Horizon 2020 project proposals.

“We’ve reached an important turning point that gender issues are considered central to the Horizon 2020 plans,” said Dr. Holly J. Falk-Krzesinski, VP of Global Academic & Relations for Elsevier. “The Gender Summit serves a catalytic role by bringing together an interdisciplinary and cross-sector set of experts and thought leaders to bridge issues of research, policy and implementation.”

Dr. Falk-Krzeskinski will give a presentation on the first day of the conference on “Interdisciplinary and Team Science:Improving Collaborative Effectiveness of Research Teams.”

Learn how Horizon 2020 will work by reading the full article on Elsevier Connect:

• Elizabeth Pollitzer, PhD, Gender Summit (#GS4EU) will explore Europe’s new plan for gender equity in science, 15 May 2014