GenPORT: sharing knowledge and inspiring collaborative action on gender and science

By Juliet Webster, Director, Gender and ICT Research Programme, IN3-UOC

Imagining the world of computing as if Steve Jobs had been a woman requires a considerable degree of guesswork, since we do not know for sure precisely which aspects of this world would be different from how they currently are. Nevertheless, during the last three decades, research has taught us a great deal about the gender relations of science and technology, and provided a firm basis for practical action to advance gender equality. The problem is, though, that this growing body of information is scattered, and for many reasons it is not always easily accessible.

We are therefore very pleased to announce today the beginning of a new four-year action on gender equality in science which we are co-ordinating in the Gender and ICT Programme at the IN3. The ‘GenPORT’ project will exploit the numerous resources that try to advance gender equality in science, technology and innovation. Although the wealth of gender and science resources developed in Europe over the last decade offers enormous potential for knowledge sharing and informed action, these resources are dispersed, and have varying degrees of visibility and usability. Globally, too, major gaps in the dissemination of past and present knowledge persist, while new knowledge is constantly being produced. This information needs to be offered in accessible, timely, and useable ways to enhance the potential for its exploitation. This is the purpose of the GenPORT project, which will develop an online community of practice on gender equality in science, technology and innovation.

«Although the wealth of gender and science resources developed in Europe over the last decade offers enormous potential, these resources are dispersed, and have varying degrees of visibility and usability»

Exploiting the Open University of Catalonia’s established expertise in developing online resources, the project will create an internet portal to provide an open entry-point to the high-quality research, policy reports and practical resources on gender, science, technology and innovation which already exist, and to new resources as they are generated. The main gender and science policy environments in the EU, US, Australia and beyond will provide the platform for developing the collection worldwide. Policy support will also be provided through research syntheses and ICT-enhanced policy briefings.

Since it will support a community of practice, the portal will be interactive and dynamic. We will achieve this dynamism by ‘crowd-sourcing’ the portal: we want to draw stakeholders in, share knowledge, create web tools to add value to resources, and exploit social media to boost the impact of the key messages coming from the latest research and policy insights.

«GenPORT will showcase a vast array of resources and innovative user interaction to boost practical and policy action by illuminating the contribution of gender equality to science excellence»

On-line community activities will be at the centre of the portal. We are also planning physical meetings and stakeholders’ events to create synergies for increased collaboration between members of the community of practice. Our aim is that this portal, showcasing a vast array of resources and innovative user interaction, will boost practical and policy action by illuminating the contribution of gender equality to science excellence. It will link closely with EU activities to promote structural change in science and research, specifically those being undertaken through the EU COST Action GenderSTE, which under Inés Sánchez de Madariaga’s leadership is also concerned with policy action for gender equality in science. In the US, the portal will exploit and promote the work being done under the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program, among others.

We have received funding for this action from the EU FP7 Science in Society Programme under the theme ‘Creating a transnational community of practitioners (Internet Portal)’. Five partners — GESIS in Germany, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini in Italy, Matej Bel University in Slovakia, Örebro University in Sweden and Portia in the UK — will work with us to develop the portal over the next four years. In the longer run, we aim to make the portal self-sustaining through the contributions of community members, so that its resources are permanently available to the gender and science community.

We are convinced that a shared vision, and shared information to achieve it, are vital elements in creating a society where the question posed in this blog no longer carries any meaning.

Contact us

We are keen to hear from you, whether you are an academic, policy maker, employer, professional association, or have another type of practical interest in this field and would like to be involved in this project by contributing your resources, ideas, news, and expertise. You can reach us at the addresses below:

• Dr Juliet Webster, Project co-ordinator: jwebster@uoc.edu
• Dr Jörg Müller, Project manager: jmuller@uoc.edu

Will we welcome a Stephanie Jobs any time soon?

By Juliet Webster, Director, Gender and ICT Programme, IN3-UOC

International Women’s Day is inevitably a time for a gender equality progress review. As the excellent, thoughtful, angry, optimistic, and often witty responses to the question “What if Steve Jobs had been a woman?” show, achieving gender equality in ICT is a very complex project. From the socialisation of kids and the cultural expectations of girls and boys, through to the management cultures of innovators and the employment practices of ICT companies, there are many interlocking reasons why there has to date been no female equivalent of Steve Jobs. This matters enormously: ICT is a site of major employment growth and opportunity in industrialised societies. The people who do this work create the tools which we all carry around, work with, manage our lives with, and perhaps even define who we are.

«When senior politicians and corporate leaders declare women’s role in ICT to be important, women are treated more seriously»

So, if gender equality in computing remains elusive, what is to be done to advance it? Over the past three years in the IN3 Gender and ICT programme, we have analysed a string of initiatives designed to advance and support women in ICT in several countries. Loud and clear from our analysis comes the conclusion that a vital ingredient in the success of these measures is high-level, consistent, sustained, political support with resources to back it up. When senior politicians and corporate leaders declare women’s role in this work to be important, women are treated more seriously. This is not the only factor, but it is a key one.

Unfortunately, in an economic crisis, the ‘trickiness’ of doing gender equality becomes a reason for retreating from it. Decision makers, who remain primarily male, are too inclined to treat gender equality as an option. The retreat from a commitment to equality has been evident, for example, in the resources and priority it is receiving in the framing of the European Union Horizon 2020 programme¹. As the strategy for European research, science and technological development for the next seven years, it is a vital mechanism for ensuring that gender equality is fundamental to such activities, indeed to all knowledge creation. It has been remarkably silent on this question.

«Action on gender equality becomes even more urgent during a crisis. How are we going to recover any kind of social or economic capacity, if we do not build new social arrangements?»

If anything, action on gender equality becomes even more urgent during a crisis. How else are we going to recover any kind of social or economic capacity, if we do not build new social arrangements? The existing social ― and gender ― relations have so shamefully destroyed so many lives. But we need political support to help us shift the social and cultural framework within which we all live and work ― to transform the provision of education, to support working women, to hold employing organisations to account on equal pay, training, and career progression. If we cannot achieve these changes, then the ‘hyper-masculine’ domination of the computing world ― indeed, the world as a whole ― will take much longer to undo.

To take this challenge forward on our own patch, the Gender and ICT Programme at the IN3 will soon start work as the leader of a substantial EU project. This project will build a new community of global activists and practitioners working in the field of gender equality in science, technology and innovation ― activities which will be vital for our individual and collective futures. GenPORT, as our project will be known, will allow people to share their knowledge and resources, develop gender equality tools together, learn from one another, and build pressure for change. This blog will give you more news, and when we begin work, we invite you to join us.

1 European Commission 2012, Enhancing and focusing EU international cooperation in research and innovation: a strategic approach (COM 2012) 497.