Certification-Award Systems to Promote Gender Equality in Research (CASPER)

The CASPER project examines the feasibility of establishing a European award/certification system for gender equality for Research Performing Organizations. The project runs for two years from January 2020 to December 2021.

Based upon an extensive assessment of available systems and needs across Europe and beyond, we will develop and evaluate three possible scenarios that pave the ground for a realistic EU wide award/certification framework. Overall, we pursue three objectives:

• To map and assess existing award and certification systems for gender equality (and related schemes) and to identify existing needs for such a system on the European level
• Design three different award/certification scenarios and assess the feasibility of these scenarios plus a fourth no-action scenario along several dimensions.
• Prepare the ground for a successful roll-out of a European award/certification scheme

Conceptual approach

The starting points for our conceptual approach towards a European award/certification system include a 1) focus on structural change as an effective instrument for gender equality; 2) the diversity of functions that certification systems can fulfil 3) the definition of evaluation and quality criteria as a political process, and 4) the diversity of European national contexts and existing schemes.

These four broader and more conceptual issues orient our discussion with stakeholders when it comes to defining and evaluating in more detail the different dimensions of a particular certification scenario, namely: certification content (“what” gets certified?), certification process (“how” will the certification be carried out?), the certification target audience (“who” will be certified?), and the certification authority (by “whom” will the certification be carried out?).