The European Commission published a report analysing the gender-based effects of the pandemic on research – particularly women with care responsibilities suffered.
On 5 May 2023, the European Commission (EC) published the independent expert report ‘COVID-19 impact on gender equality in research & innovation’. An expert group considered scholarly data, grey literature and personal experiences from EU projects to assess the consequences and effects of the Covid-19 crisis and mitigation measures on female researchers, productivity and gender equality in general.
The report integrates international perspectives, national and local situations and good practice examples. By presenting occurring problems and giving recommendations, the report addresses national and European authorities, research funders and performing organisations and various umbrella organisations.
The R&I sector is getting increasingly crucial for understanding the challenges of our time and offering solutions to climate change, digitalisation or rising conflicts. Over the past decades, gender equality in the sector increased tremendously at all levels; nevertheless the SheFigures 2021 report indicates remaining inequities (see SwissCore article).
Meanwhile, Covid-19 tested the system and its ability to maintain at least the already achieved advancements. According to the report, women still have to overcome more hurdles and structural barriers than their male counterparts to develop their careers, especially if they belong to an ethnic minority, have care responsibilities, come from a low socio-economic background or are disabled. Among others, this is the case because the system is perpetuating existing inequities by using evaluation practices, mainly driven by narrow quantitative metrics and the ability to attract funds and therefore favouring mainly established white male researchers like these who are promoted by the Clarivate highly cited researchers statistics.
Even if the awareness on national and EU levels is rising, concrete policies tackling the issues are missing. The only concrete activities started by the EC are the obligation for gender equality plans at R&I organisations to be eligible for Horizon Europe Funding (see SwissCore article) and the two ERA Policy Agenda Actions 3 (working on reforming the assessment system for research, researchers and institutions with the help of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and ERA Action 5 (promoting gender equality and fostering inclusiveness). For the latter, a subgroup from Member States, Associated Countries and stakeholder organisations was set up in March 2023.
The report concentrates on four main aspects and dedicates a chapter to each: i. Academic productivity, practices and institutional responses, ii. Early career researchers (ECRs), iii. Care responsibilities, new working modalities, gender-based violence, work-life balance and well-being, and iv. unseen and marginalised experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic. In general, researchers who were already established and able to redirect their work towards a Covid-related topic even benefited from the pandemic through improved visibility, outreach and increased research funding. Also, open access practices like the publication of pre-prints or open data sharing were embraced. By transferring work activities and conferences online, they became more accessible for people from institutions with limited budgets; meanwhile, the opportunity for spontaneous and social interaction was almost completely lost, which impacted the ECRs strongest. Most institutional responses to the pandemic and mitigation measures were generic, ignored gender aspects and did not specifically target most disadvantaged groups.
Especially women and ECRs with care responsibilities were not addressed but were affected most. Care work reduced the available time for research, along with reduced access to research facilities; this led to decreased productivity, indicated by fewer journal submissions and publications by young researchers. Furthermore, mobility schemes for skill development, network building and career progression were highly limited, and it will be difficult to compensate for this loss in the future. It is particularly drastic for women and other minorities, who have to bring mobility activities in balance with their partner, planning childbirth, care responsibilities and the increasing economic effects.
Digital, tele and smart working introduced more flexibility to researchers, but simultaneously, blurred lines between work and private spaces. This, again, was especially disadvantaging women engaged in care activities. In general, an increase in gender-based violence could be observed, but the data is missing to evaluate the specific impact on R&I.
The highest incidence of stress and negative impact on wellbeing was recorded in most burdened researchers challenged with care work like single parents. The effect of Covid-19 on other minorities and marginalised groups is difficult to grasp due to missing data, but it can be expected that disability, ethnicity, socio-economic background, gender identity and sexuality could have had a comparable effect.
Recommendations proposed by the expert group involve mainly funding schemes to close gaps. The report asks for more funding for research on gender and minority disparities, gender-based violence, work-life balance and wellbeing in the Covid-19 context in the R&I sector. It should be in line with the Gender equality strategy 2020-2025 by the EC and integrate national funding schemes to support the monitoring of the Covid-19 recovery phase. Also, more specific research funding and mobility schemes for the most disadvantaged groups, women, ECRs, and researchers with care responsibilities are proposed. The ongoing efforts of CoARA should be encouraged, and therefore, the criteria to assess and select candidates for recruitment, advancement and funding adapted; this would include the consideration of pandemic effects alongside gender and minority perspectives. These overarching recommendations are complemented by specific recommendations for each chapter heading to various stakeholders like the EC, research-performing organisations and funders or national authorities.