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ESF’s contribution to achieving gender balance
At the European Science Foundation we have been addressing the gender aspects of research for over ten years, building in particular on the outputs from:
- Research Careers in European Landscape and Horizons
- ESF Member Organisation Forums on Developing Research Careers In and Beyond Europe
- European Gender Summit 2012 hosted by the ESF
- Publication of the Code of Conduct for Research Integrity by ESF and ALLEA
- Two last career tracking studies of doctorate graduates (2015 and 2017)
Last year we reenergized internal discussions on gender equality by creating a dedicated working group to propose concrete measures to be implemented at an institutional level. The gender aspect is also taken very seriously when forming ESF expert review panels for grant evaluation, by pro-actively investigating ways to further improve the panels’ gender balance, to reach a level of at least 40% female researchers (currently 30%).
Finally, ESF is committed to working within the best practice guidelines of the European Charter of Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. These are designed to promote equal rights for individual researchers and provide ‘Human Resources Excellence in Research’, in particular to ensure and encourage full gender equality.