In June 2021 the LetsGEPs Consortium has achieved the fundamental milestone of the Project: the official approval of the Gender Equality Plans for its six implementing partners. It was a very tough target to hit, since none of them had ever implemented a Gender Equality Plan before, and, above all, the debut coincided with the pandemic period: not exactly the best one to promote transformative changes!
Nevertheless, despite the fears of Covid, requirements for smart working, work overloads, isolation and lockdowns, Zoom fatigue, etc., all partners managed to structure and approve their first GEP: a result we are all very much proud of.
These weeks all GEPs produced by the Project are on the way of their implementation process, and Project teams are working hard to introduce the gender equality measures planned.
In the next months we will report on more activities and results, but now we think that a synthetic presentation of the actions and objectives of LeTsGEPs’ GEPs may be helpful to other RPOs willing to engage into their GEPs processes.
After all, what a better encouragement: if we managed to release GEP in these conditions, everything is possible!
Today we present to you the GEP of MISANU:
The MISANU GEP is structured in 12 Measures that follow seven main objectives – identified on the basis of data collection within the Project:
The first is Gender Monitoring, elaborated as institutional capacity building for identification of relevant data and their ongoing maintenance, as well as the establishment of systematic procedures and information systems to improve data collection and address data shortages. The goal is to collect more data for making a more accurate institutional fit of the GEP possible. The monitoring will be supervised by a newly nominated Gender Equality Officer.
The second goal is Awareness Raising. Among other activities, this goal will be reached by organizing an annual workshop on Gender Equality in Research, and using International Day of Mathematics, Computer Science and Information and Communication Technologies for ensuring the visibility of women scientists.
The third is Gender Diversity in Academic Structures and a Greater Participation of Women in Decision-making Bodies and Processes. Here also the newly nominated Gender Equality Officer plays a big role, being in charge among other things for preventing discrimination and monitoring the situation regarding gender structure at MISANU.
Another measure, more targeted at decision-making bodies, is the Empowerment and Motivation of MISANU Women Employees to Run in the Elections for the Members of the Management Board, with the aim that in the next election cycle at least one woman is elected. A third measure in this field is Monitor the Structure and Gender Balance of MISANU Working Bodies and Evaluation Commissions. Finally, a central measure for elevating the participation of women on all levels of the scientific career is a Mentoring Program in the field of Gender Equality and Research Career.
The fourth goal of the MISANU GEP is the Application of Gender Sensitive Budgeting. The adoption of a gender sensitive financial plan for 2022 is highly supported by excellent networking activities in the form of partnerships with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Serbia and the UNWomen on mainstreaming gender sensitive budgeting and providing advice to other national RPOs in this regard.
The fifth goal is the Support of Gender in Research and Innovation content. The basis for reaching this goal is built by the monitoring of integration of Gender dimension in the research of MISANU. A guide will be prepared on how to identify and integrate Gender dimension in scientific work. An annual workshop on that topic will be organized, while also the support of the Association of European Women in Mathematics is aspired.
The sixth goal is the Empowering of Employees to Achieve Work-Life Balance. Here the central measure is the approval of remote work in specific family or general circumstances.
The seventh goal is the Prohibition of Sexual and other Harassment, which will be achieved by the adoption of a rulebook with the corresponding regulations.
MISANU’s GEP is therefore characterized by new and fundamental measures in the structural anchoring of Gender Equality: the nomination of a Gender Equality Officer and the establishing of a rulebook on sexual and other harassment, accompanied by also individual support for women scientists (mentoring) and cultural measures like regular events on the visibility of women scientists. A special strenght of this GEP is an extraordinary extent of the planned networking on a national but also international level, among other with the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the UNWomen, the Women of Europe in Mathematics and other national RPOs. It can be expected that the MISANU GEP will be distributed as good practice among a wide range of scientific stakeholders.
The full GEP report of MISANU is available here:
http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/novi_sajt/news/news_pages/plan_rodna_ravnopravnost_en.pdf