This report documents the findings obtained through a comprehensive literature review, analysis of available data on partner institutions (results from the GENERA 2.1. task) , as well as a widely-scoped cross-sectional selection of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) implemented across countries and institutions partaking in the GENERA Consortium and beyond. It constitutes the Deliverable 2.2. of the GENERA project.
The goal of Task 2.2., carried out under the GENERA's Work Package 2 Status of research intensity advancing GEP activities in Europe's RPOs and RFOs and led by the Jagiellonian University's team of GENERA researchers, is to map and identify successful gender equality measures and conditions for improving research cultural environment in the fields linked to physics. Special emphasis in the task is on pinpointing the “best practices” and “best in class” examples of innovative approaches. This is further achieved by a multi-focus approach. First, the research presented in this Report investigates what are the gaps in the current GEPs that are often too generic to capture the specific disciplinary challenges and needs - as in the case of Physics. An in-depth look at GEPs is seen as conducive to completing the goal of highlighting the necessity of transnational approaches to projects that compare research infrastructures and data cross-nationally. Discussions of cultural aspects - i.e. mobility constrains, local scientific cultures, funding bodies - in the current GEPs can further foster formulation of features for new, revised and customized GEPs. Secondly, it attempts to advance the knowledge on particular barriers that make research environments in physics suboptimal for female researchers. Thirdly, the study aims at analysing the emerging subfields of Physics as a broad discipline, seeking to determine whether links to other sciences, interdisciplinary character and novelty of the subfield's instating process have any impact on gender indicators and results of GEPs. In addition, the goal of the last subtask is to discuss the type of the impact per each examined new field of physics.