Method and data

For answering these questions, a comprehensive documentary review has been undertaken, whereby the most relevant official and formal documents that served as basis and input for the work of the different actors have been critically reviewed to verify where and how references to gender have been made in these documents. Additionally, for some actors, the documentary review has been complemented with additional enquiries and analyses, notably to check the implementation of certain provisions at the framework programme level (as opposed to the project level).

As a reminder: the case analysis looks in detail at two specific areas of the Sixth RTD Framework Programme (FP6): the area that deals with the Social Sciences and Humanities, and the so- called ‘Science and Society’ area. These areas were chosen because they are the most relevant

areas for gender. It may be useful to situate these areas first within the broader structure of FP6. FP6 had three main blocks of activities, in which the first block ‘Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area’ contains seven Priority Thematic Areas. ‘Citizens and governance

in a knowledge-based society’ (covering the Social Sciences and Humanities) is the 7th _Priority

of these thematic areas. ‘Science and Society’ is an activity area within the second block of FP6 ‘Structuring the European Research Area’ (ERA). The ‘Science and Society’ activity area is structured along three axes, of which the first aims to bring research closer to society; the second is concerned with promoting responsible research and application of science and technology, while the third seeks to step up the science/society dialogue, and addresses also the role of women in science. Despite this specific focus on women in science within Science and Society, it is to be noted that both fields (Priority 7 and Science and Society), due to their very nature, are intrinsically gender relevant because dealing with society and its (mixed) population.

The actors that were involved in the selected areas of the Sixth framework Programme, and that are therefore subsequently considered in the sections below are: the applicants / project holders, the proposal evaluators, the independent observers, negotiators / project officers, Descartes Prize evaluators and juries, National Contact Points and Civil Society Organisations or external gender experts20_{. First an overview is given now of the corpus of data reviewed}

per set of actors. The reviewed documents comprise all the important documents that were relevant for the respective actors.

The documents that were reviewed for the applicants / project holders are the Work Programmes, the calls for proposals, the Guide for Proposers, the Compendium of Good Practices for Gender Actions Plans, the contract, and the Science and Society reporting requirements. For the proposal evaluators, the reviewed documents are the Guidelines on Proposal Evaluation and Selection Procedures, the Guide for Evaluators, as well as a slide show prepared the by the Women and Science unit for the purpose of supporting the briefing of evaluators on gender issues. To gain an understanding of the implementation of the provisions by the evaluators, all the Evaluation Summary Reports of the proposals evaluated above all thresholds and of the gender-specific proposals that failed were reviewed. The latter were analysed in order to check whether any bias could have existed during the evaluation process against these gender- specific proposals.

The Guidelines on Proposal Evaluation and Selection Procedures are also the source for the

independent observers’ role. These Guidelines contain an annex entitled Code of Conduct for

independent observers. In addition, an unofficial model for a report to be produced by the independent observers was looked into. Those independent observer reports produced by these actors that could be obtained were also reviewed in order to check how the independent

20 _{Absent from this analysis are the project evaluators of the biggest projects (Networks of Excellence and Integrated Projects),}

observers have taken up the implementation of their gender mainstreaming related responsibilities.

For the Commission officials who act as negotiators and as project scientific officers, the main guidance document for the implementation of the gender mainstreaming approach under FP6 has been the Vademecum (the full title of this document is Vademecum: Gender Mainstreaming in the 6th _{Framework Programme – Reference Guide for Scientific Officers/Project Officers).} The present chapter also looks into other structural provisions and resources available to these actors: the template of the Science and Society Reporting Questionnaire which project holders had to submit into SESAM (the electronic reporting system of the EC under the Framework Programme) and which was supposed to support central monitoring of projects’ progress related to gender (among other issues), as well as the time these Commission officials have had available for taking up their project officer tasks.

For the evaluators and juries who made the selection of the Descartes Prize winners, the ‘Guidance Notes for Evaluators’ for the Descartes Prizes has been reviewed. This chapter also turns briefly to the implementation of the Descartes Prizes initiative by the Commission, by looking at the number of women in the selection panels and among the Prize winners. The approach followed for the analysis of the structural provisions to equip the National

Contact Points (NCPs) for their gender mainstreaming role has been different. A central

survey among all FP6 NCPs has been organised by the EC on their perceived needs and role in the gender mainstreaming process. The present chapter uses the results of this survey as the basis of the analysis.

Finally, this chapter also considers the provisions that have been structurally foreseen for the involvement of external gender experts in the gender mainstreaming implementation, while recognising that no provisions had been put in place for the involvement of traditional women’s movement organisations.

Besides the analysis itself, the sections below give more detailed information about how the documents have been analysed.