TRIPLE HELIX noms.pmd

W-31Gender mainstreaming the food processing industry in SkaneChristina Scholten, Malmo UniversityAgneta Andersson, Halmstad University, SwedenKicki Stridh, Mia Swärdh, Internationell Kompetens AB, SwedenRegional development, innovation and growth policy are gender coded as male objects of interest (Friberg1993, Gunnarssonet.al. 2007, Pettersson 2007, Rönnblom 2002, Scholten 2003). In Sweden, regional development policy and growth, has traditionallyfocused male dominated line of businesses within male primary business sectors. In a sustainable regional development andgrowth perspective, gender equality and a broader perspective on innovation and development is crucial. The aim of this abstractis to describe the setting for our action research project Gender equality in the Skane Food Innovation Network (SFIN) and ourmain research objectives. Theoretically we use Joan Ackers’ (1990) analysis of gender in organizations.The settingThe setting for our project is the food process industry in Skane. In the beginning of the 1990s, several agents in Skane withinterest in the food industry business gathered as Sweden entered the European Union. It became evident that something hadto be done in order to face global competition. The Skane Food Innovation Network (SFIN) was established and in 2003 thenetwork took part in a call by Vinnova, a national body on research and development and received 100 000 billion SwedishKronor during a ten year period for a project aiming at developing the Swedish food process industry. In that call, the SFIN alsoagreed to work with gender equality. However, working with gender equality demands knowledge on gendered power relations,construction of cultural understandings of femininity and masculinity as well as of how these power relations are constructed,maintained and reproduced. In 2007 a second call on applied gender equality in innovation networks were launched. SFIN wassuccessful in that call and the project, Gender Equality in the SFIN was able to begin its work in 2008.SFIN is a triple helix organization; the board as well as the steering committee is represented by the academy, industry andsociety. It is organized as a network /community where action is prior to refection or bureaucracy. The steering committee isboth acting and reacting on innovation projects. SFIN has a board called the entrepreneurial committee which values anddiscuss innovations and projects with innovators. The committee may also co-finance project.SFIS also has its own project managers who work together with organizations and businesses to develop or improve routinesand create knowledge. SFIN work with knowledge creating and knowledge developing processes, called “gillen” after a specificSkanian way of gathering and feasting together. One of these processes is called future vision. The process leader of thisprocess argues that gender is a critical indicator for development, improving and innovation. The question is how to use a genderperspective to develop the SFIN further, create sustainable gender equality and improve speed of and quality of innovation?Gender mainstreaming a network? Some method implicationsIn SFIN one main objection is to create arenas for learning, development and innovation based on strategic importance. Onestrategic issue is gender. Gender is thought of as fundamental in making qualitative differences in asking questions accordingto problem definition. Gender is also valued as crucial according to development and innovation.There are built in difficulties in trying to gender mainstream a network. In our project we decided early to focus on the steeringcommittee (SC). Our idea was/is to create a learning environment according to gender and gender equality issues and analysis,where every day work by the SC can be influenced by gender equality awareness. The first important step is to create anawareness of what is being done, in what way, why and by whom, out of a gender perspective to help the SC to put demandson working partners within the network. This attempt calls for models and methods based on learning and reflection togetherwith representatives for the innovation habitat and partners within the triple helix in making them sustainable (Berge & Ve 2000,Gunnarsson, Johannisson & Stjernberg 2008, Hansson 2003).Results so farWorking with the SC has resulted in two workshops on what a gender and a gender equality perspective might bring when itcomes to describing the SFINs activities. Input to the first workshop was results from interviews with the board of SFIN,discussing acknowledgement and personal engagement for qualitative issues in relation to research and development processeswithin the food process industry. Another input was an account of how men and women are represented in the newsletter fromSFIN. This input gave the SC first hand feedback of the difficulty on working with gender equality issues. It became clear that theboard wasn’t that interested or had made any investments in the new project within the SFIN. The representation of men andwomen in the newsletter described men as professors or project leaders and women as project team members and students.The aim with the second workshop was to introduce a toolbox for gender equality analysis in R&D environments and thequestion was: what can be learned from others?Our next step was an eye-to-eye discussion with the members of the SC to discuss how R&D-initiatives are put forward. Everymember described the main object of hers/his process and by discussing and analyzing the discussions we have been able todetect described processes as gender blind and helped the process leaders to have an extended repertoire of contacts andMadrid, October 20, 21 & 22 - 2010306