D E S C R I P T I O N O F W O R K - MEGAPOLI - Dmi

MEGAPOLI 212520
B5. Consideration of gender aspects
B.5.1 Gender Action Plan to Promote Equality
Many of the partners in MEGAPOLI have gender action plans at the institutional level as part of their
commitment to gender equality. These include programmes to raise awareness of the issues involved in
gender equality, commitments to family friendly work practices and career breaks, and provision of childcare
facilities. Organizational initiatives to encourage gender equality enjoy high level backing within
partner institutes. For example, the DMI, UH-CAIR, UHam and KCL have an active gender action plan,
promoting women in high level positions. In addition UH-CAIR has been recognised for its positive and
supportive programmes for staff development and equality through the Investors in People (IIP)
accreditation.
A Gender equality promotion action plan will be developed and will be implemented through Task 9.1. The
plan will contain the following elements:
a) Project Gender Subcommittee
The gender subcommittee will actively promote the role of women at all levels within the Project. It will be
responsible for ensuring that the gender plan is applied across the spectrum of research themes in the project,
both in terms of internal communication of developments and progress via the project web-site, and
communicating progress externally, via the annual gender action report. The committee will also be
responsible for ensuring that the dissemination aspects of the project (WP 9) are female-friendly. The
committee will consist of 3 members elected by all female project participants on an annual basis, with the
possibility of re-election.
b) Annual Gender Action Report
The report will document the extent to which actions promoting gender equality have been performed at the
Project level, and will chart the rates of female participation at all levels of the project.
c) Recruitment of Female Researchers
Recruitment of young, talented female researchers will be encouraged in MEGAPOLI. Job advertisements
will state the project’s commitment to equality and to a family-friendly working environment and will
explicitly encourage women to apply. The gender subcommittee will liaise with national programmes in the
production of suitable information material for educational institutes, and will encourage participation in
events that raise awareness to the positive aspects of gender equality.
d) Consortium Agreement
The Consortium Agreement governing the operation of the integrated project will enforce the following
minimum requirements on the participating institutions:
• Encouragement of applications by female researchers in job advertisement.
• Action to ensure that employees are properly informed about their parental rights and responsibilities.
• Encouragement of female coaching and mentoring schemes, and project management.
• Production of an annual report on the nature and utility/success of gender actions undertaken.
e) Project Management Committee
The MEGAPOLI project management committee has been chosen to ensure that women are adequately
represented at the highest organizational levels of the project. Within the management structure of
MEGAPOLI just over 20% of WP, Task and Team leaders are women. Whilst not approaching equality, this
percentage is higher than that of women in senior positions in environmental science generally, and gives
women a significant say in how the project is organised and run.
B.5.2 Gender Issues in MEGAPOLI
The Commission report “Gender in Research” on the 5th Framework Programme (Environment and
Sustainable Development sub-programme, Annex 1, Page 18) concluded that “the natural science oriented
climate research turns out to be more or less gender neutral”. No gender issues relating to subject matter are
expected in connection with this work, which covers the bulk of the work to be undertaken in this Project.
However, gender issues, along with the necessary scientific experience, have been taken into account in
establishing the MEGAPOLI consortium and the work programme and its management structures. In the
current consortium just over 25% of the leaders and deputy leaders are women (KCL, UHam, CNRS,
CASUS and WMO).
110