Abstract
Despite the fact that the topic of “women in research and innovation” has been on the agenda for decades and numerous measures have been implemented at both national and supranational levels to improve gender equality in research and innovation systems, it is still unclear which measures and under which conditions these measures are most effective. Even less research has been carried out on the effects of better representation of women in terms of research and innovation. This paper is based on the application of an innovative evaluation framework, which encompasses complexity and theory of change approaches and aims at exploring the link between interventions and their subsequent effects to two case studies. We discuss two major German flagship programmes aiming at increasing the participation of female researchers in the science system, the “Women Professorship Programme” and the “Pact for Research and Innovation”. Through the two programmes, we tested and validated the evaluation framework and its indicators. As part of the validation process, a theory of change has been developed for each of the programmes. The theory-based evaluation approach helped not only to identify gender equality impacts but also broader effects on research and innovation that might have otherwise remained undetected. We studied the effects of the two programmes on the number of women in leadership positions and analysed whether an increase in the proportion of women leaders influences publication patterns. Although linear linkages are challenging to establish due to the complexity of the process, the findings suggest that the flagship programmes have contributed not only to higher shares of women researchers but also to improved female publication and citation rates. There are clear benefits for Germany in terms of scientific results from the increased proportion of female researchers in research and innovation.
Highlights
With the rise of evidence-based policy making (e.g. Nutley et al 2002; Solesbury 2001; Sanderson 2002), expectations have grown regarding the use of scientific evidence in decision-making in the policy realm
Based on the review and “smart practice” examples implemented in different organisations and contexts, we clustered the indicators into different categories, dimensions and sub-dimensions, according to an evaluation logic model based on the theory of change
It is obvious that our evaluation approach reflects many of the limitations that are characteristic of the evaluation field
Summary
With the rise of evidence-based policy making (e.g. Nutley et al 2002; Solesbury 2001; Sanderson 2002), expectations have grown regarding the use of scientific evidence in decision-making in the policy realm. According to the adopted evaluation framework, gender equality interventions are embedded in a complex context in which a large number of variables interact with each other and determine the effectiveness and impact of a programme (Kalpazidou Schmidt and Graversen 2020). This theoretical perspective, based on theory of change and complexity, has important implications for gender equality policy and practice It implies that the effects of interventions are largely expected in terms of contributions to change, improved conditions to foster change, as well as an increased probability that change can happen. We need to adopt a reflexive and probabilistic approach demonstrating contributions to change under different contextual conditions and over longer periods of time based on clearly formulated assumptions about the impact of interventions in specific contexts, developing theories of change for each of the cases we study (Kalpazidou Schmidt and Graversen 2020)
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