Abstract

The European Commission has made it mandatory for all research projects submitted under Horizon Europe programme to focus on gender dimension and to consider gender balance in research teams. Also national funding agencies are focusing more and more on this topic. However, researchers often feel challenged in understanding, thinking about and implementing gender dimension in their research and teams. Some researchers might be familiar with the topic, but many of them are being forced to consider it for the first time and might show resistance.
At the University Medical Center in Groningen, we have created a tool to support researchers think about how to integrate gender in different steps during the writing of their research proposal. We have identified three steps in the writing and design of a research project to reflect on gender: in the methodology, in the stakeholders and in the long-term impact. With this tool we also offer them to think about the diversity of their team.
With the presentation of the tool, I would like to open the discussion on how we as research managers can best support researchers with these new requirements and what is our role in highlighting the relevance of such an issue.