Equal Opportunities and Diversity

In everyday parlance, the term sex is associated with biological differences, while gender refers to socially constructed characteristics. In medicine and biology, the precise meaning of the term gender has changed frequently throughout history and is always contingent upon societal norms. Nowadays, gender has multidimensional meanings. As a result, biological sex does not form the basis of gender, but is merely one part of it. The term gender avoids a fixation on biology and instead signals that gender is not only a “natural”, but also a social circumstance. Gender marks the interaction of biological factors such as the chromosome set, historical and social factors like the gender-based division of labor, cultural factors like clothing, hairstyle or the way we address people, and legal/political factors like the choice of name, which forces an unambiguous allocation to a gender. Gender also expresses that “men” and “women” and “non-binary” are not uniform groups.

The term gender equality describes a situation in which all members of a society are free to develop their own personal abilities and to make decisions without being restricted by specific roles, and in which the different behavioral patterns, goals, and needs of the different genders are accounted for, recognized, and promoted in the same way.

The phrase equal opportunities of all genders refers to a situation in which there are no gender-specific barriers to stand in the way of equal participation in economic, political, and social life. For the FWF, equal opportunity is about supporting underrepresented groups in science and the equal treatment of the genders.

The FWF understands diversity to mean the many differentiating features that exist between researchers. With an intersectional understanding in mind, the FWF endeavors to take gender into consideration alongside other diversity aspects (such as age, parenthood, disability, background) in their interaction.

Gender-sensitive research includes the gender aspect during the entire course of research. The way that gender relates and interacts with central analytical questions and categories, as well as potential discrimination structures, are continually observed, reflected upon, and considered in the research process.

By contrast, gender-specific research places gender or gender relations and their characteristics in the focus of the research interest.

Gender-blind research is research that ignores gender or gender-relevant aspects. In such cases, the gender dimension is disregarded due to the (often inaccurate) assumption that it is irrelevant to the research questions and analyses and/or the research does not have any kind of impact on people. An analysis that, for example, only includes male test subjects or uses data sets that were generated only on the basis of males (e.g. only using male mice), is not suitable for generating findings that are generally applicable.

Instead, this can lead to an (unconscious or unintended) gender bias. This refers to gender-related biases arising from a failure to account appropriately for gender differences. In addition to affecting the research process, these biases may also affect the validity of research findings.

In contrast to this, gender-sensitive research within the context of research design examines how gender-specific (encompassing biological sex and social gender) factors are integrated into scientific knowledge and whether the gender category is systematically taken into consideration in the development of knowledge. This gives rise to higher-quality research results which have systematically accounted for specific differences and needs. At the same time, gender-sensitive research also supports the development and more precise definition of scholarly questions and, thanks to its differentiated approach, serves a larger group of people in the pursuit of their own scholarly agendas.

• Gendered Innovations Stanford
• Geschlecht und Innovation TU Wien
• SheFigures Europäische Kommission
• Wie kommt Gender in die Forschung
• „10 Jahre Women in Science“ der Europäischen Kommission (1999–2009), European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Stocktaking 10 years of “women in science” policy by the European Commission 1999–2009: Annexes, Publications Office, 2010
• SNF – Schweizerischer Nationalfonds / Geschlecht und Forschungsförderung
• Angela Wroblewski et al. (2007), Wirkungsanalyse frauenfördernder Maßnahmen im bm:bwk, Materialien zur Förderung von Frauen in der Wissenschaft, Band 21

• Schiebinger l. & Schraudner, M. (2011). Interdisciplinary Approaches to Achieving Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, and Engineering1, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 36:2, 154-167, DOI: 10.1179/030801811X13013181961518
• Schiebinger, L. & Klinge, I. Eds. (2020). Gendered Innovations 2: How Inclusive Analysis Contributes to Research and Innovation (Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2020)
• Videosequenz Understanding gender dimension for MSCA projects – YouTube
• Checklist for Gender in Research
• Auszüge aus dem Toolkit von yellowwindow