Abstract
Introduction. Institutional change through gender equality plans is today the dominant approach to promoting gender equality in higher education and research. Building on our experiences as “technical support partners” in several EU-funded projects, we reflect on how change is negotiated in a variety of contexts. Objectives. Theoretically, using Feminist Institutionalism and the Science and Technology Studies concept of the trading zone, our objective is to analyse institutional negotiations among various, differently positioned actors with diverse backgrounds, value systems and negotiating power. From a practice-oriented perspective, our aim is to demonstrate typical challenges, suggest pathways towards solutions, and identify specific negotiation skills which underscore the capacity-building needs of change agents. Methodology. For our analysis, we have selected eight information-rich case studies through purposive theory-based sampling, illustrating the different transactions in the trading zones, based on our prior knowledge of the circumstances. The methods we draw on are primarily participant observation and textual analysis of project documents. Results. The selected theoretical combination allows us to identify leverages, ways to overcome barriers and the required skills and competences. Specifically, we underscore the use of participatory and co-creation techniques, strategic framing, spotting and using windows of opportunity, and wide mobilisation of stakeholders. We highlight key features of the change process, including its processual and incremental nature, the need for constant negotiation and the capacity-building needs of change agents. Contribution. With this analysis, we contribute, firstly, to the understanding of organisational change by identifying concrete barriers and opportunities as well as considering the ways in which a shared representation of gender equality is developed. The second, theoretical contribution lies in combining Feminist Institutionalism and the concept of the trading zone, which allows us to bring to productive dialogue issues of power, processuality and the need to address both material and discursive enactments of change processes.
Highlights
Institutional change through gender equality plans is today the dominant approach to promoting gender equality in higher education and research
Since 2010, starting with the call FP7-SCIENCE-IN-SOCIETY-2010-1, the European Commission has been funding so-called institutional change projects to promote gender equality in research and higher education institutions under its funding programmes for research and development, most recently Framework Programme 7 and Horizon 2020. These projects bring together institutions from different countries which commit to analysing their situation as regards gender equality, to setting up and implementing a Gender Equality Plan (GEP), and to monitoring and evaluating the progress they make through their actions
From these different perspectives as “privileged observers” of the change processes and positioning ourselves as “feminist critical friends” (Chappell and Mackay, 2020) towards the partners implementing their GEPs, we focus our analysis on the negotiations that efforts towards institutional change for gender equality entail and seek in this article to extract key learning points, supported by cases
Summary
Institutional change through gender equality plans is today the dominant approach to promoting gender equality in higher education and research. We have acted as the monitoring and evaluation partners, advisory board members, and the partner responsible for providing support and capacity-building to the ones implementing GEPs as well as gender experts on the core implementing teams Apart from these roles, we have acted as policy advisors towards the European Commission. From these different perspectives as “privileged observers” of the change processes and positioning ourselves as “feminist critical friends” (Chappell and Mackay, 2020) towards the partners implementing their GEPs, we focus our analysis on the negotiations that efforts towards institutional change for gender equality entail and seek in this article to extract key learning points, supported by cases. Our aim with this article is to demonstrate typical challenges in the change process, suggest pathways towards solutions for problems and challenges, and identify specific skills required in the negotiations which underscore the capacity-building needs of change agents
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