Gendertime; Impact Evaluation As Part of the Learning Process

The aim of the GenderTime project is to increase the participation and career advancement of women researchers by the implementation and monitoring of self-tailored action plans. The consortium consists of 10 partner institutions from 8 different European countries. They are intentionally very different in terms of size, discipline, history, etc. in order to experiment in various situations and to create a synergy among scientific partners. The GenderTime partners’ self-tailored action plans involve activities such as recruitment, retention and promotion policies, supporting work-life balance measures, updated management and research standards, supporting policies for dual careers-couple, etc. Additionally, transfer agents in cooperation with management representatives play a crucial role and guarantee successful implementation of structural change in selected partner organizations.

Within this presentation we will present the first results of the impact evaluation of this project, which cover the first two years of the project and show some successful examples from the institutions. In general the evaluation is aimed at the process of learning, accountability, and impact assessment. It is done from an external team of researchers, who are not involved in the project otherwise. Thereby an unbiased view from the outside can be ensured. The purpose of the impact evaluation is to set up a benchmarking around the status of the gender action plan and compare the different organizations. The analysis of the gender equity status quo at the beginning of the project (prerequisite checklist) shows that all organizations already handle some processes and procedures in a gender-sensitive way. The extent to which this happens as well as the gender equity status quo differs highly between the organizations. We will discuss successful examples from different organizations.