Women Scientists in Gender-Specific Technological R&D (WOSISTER)
Project Summary
The project aims to clarify the process of how women scientists that are engaged in technological R&D respond to the needs of women end-users. The study will display economic and socio-cultural factors that influence gender-specific end-user interaction with women researchers by comparing and analysing gender equality in R&D in the cases of two technologies – agricultural implements for rural application and teleservices - and in two transition economies - Poland and China.
Based on the results of the study, policy recommendations will be formulated for better gender equality in technological R&D. This study aims to increase awareness and comprehension of the gender issue in scientific research among decision makers and the broader public, and to clarify the opportunities for women scientists in technological R&D to interact with women end-users.
Main Goals
Key Issues
Expected Achievements & Impacts
Project Timeline (pdf)
Working papers
WOSISTER Project Teams
The RPI Team
The RPI research team selected for coordinating and maintaining the proposed activity has broad experience in evaluating the process of technological R&D, analysing national innovation systems, and assessing policy formulation and implementation.
Bo Göransson (Team Leader and Project Coordinator), Ph.D. Senior Research Fellow
Claes Brundenius PhD, Associate Professor
Marie Hallberg Project Assistant
Sylvia Schwaag-Serger PhD, Researcher
Max Rolfstam PhD, Researcher
Reija Tuomaala MA, Researcher
Jan Ågren MA, Project Assistant
The Chinese Team
The National Research Center for Science and Technology for Development (NRCSTD) is a comprehensive policy research institute of the Ministry of Science and Technology of PRC. The main task of NRCSTD is to do policy research and consultation consigned by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other central or local governmental departments, so as to provide consultations and policy suggestions for government policy making on science and technology development, economy development and social development.
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Zhou Yuan (Team Leader), Ph.D. Researcher and Vice Director of NRCSTD
Liu Dongmei, Ph.D. Researcher, Dept. of Social and Sustainable Development Studies
Wang Haiyan, Associate Researcher, Dept. of Policy Studies
Chen Weihua, Associate Researcher, Dept. of Strategic Studies
Shen Hong, Associate Professor, Instit. of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Wu Guobao, Associate Professor, Rural Development Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Zhang Juwei, Researcher, Institute of Population Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Zhang Linxiu, Deputy Director of the Institute of Agricultural Economics, Deputy Director of Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
The Polish Team
The Institute of Production Systems Organisation (IPSO) is located in the structure of Production Engineering Faculty as one of its four institutes. Actual activity profile has been shaped as a result of several decades of experience in research and in teaching of organisation and management on the university level at Warsaw University of Technology.
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Jaroslaw Domanski (Team Leader), Ph. D. Researcher
Elzbieta Zakrzewska-Manterys, Ph. D. University of Warsaw
Katarzyna Skroban, Ph. D.
Jadwiga Chudzicka, Ph. D.
Tadeusz Krupa, Ph. D., Director
Jan Monkiewicz, Ph D. Director of Division of Economics and Enterprise Management
Specific information about WOSISTER
Main Goals
Based on a comparative study of Poland and the Chinese Province of Shaanxi with the Nordic countries as a reference, the study aims at developing a better understanding of gender issues in scientific research, both from the perspective of scientists and end-users of technology. Through analysing and comparing the influence of gender roles, socio-cultural contexts and stereotypes the results of the study will provide important insights on the role of women in technological R&D.
The general objective is to clarify the process of how women scientists engaged in technological R&D respond to the needs of women end-users. The project compares and analyses gender equality in R&D in the cases of two distinctively different technologies - teleservices and agricultural implements for rural application - in two transition economies - Poland and China. The focus is on the demand for gender-specific R&D and on the possibilities of women scientists to interact with women end-users. How has women’s role in science changed in the transition process? How do the economic and socio-cultural factors influence gender-specific end-user analysis for rural technologies and teleservices? What are the differences between the roles of women scientists in the two technologies in China and their peers in Poland? What policy implications can be drawn from the case studies?
Key Issues
The project will make an empirical analysis of the position of women scientists in R&D in the selected technologies. Based on the previous research, questionnaires and interviews, the aim is to analyse explicit as well as implicit cultural and ructural factors that have an impact on genderspecific studies in technological R&D: women scientists in decision making, their status, career opportunities, policy recommendations, patriarchal nature of culture, gerontocratic politics, and disparities in different technologies. The analysis will display visible and hidden processes behind the scientific structures, which hamper gender equality in research in general.
Moreover, the project will formulate recommendations for better adaptation of genderspecific studies in technological R&D: recommendations for policies and programmes; increased equality between genders in scientific research; gender-specific end-user analysis for gender-sensitive applications; utilisation of social capital of women in gender-specific research etc. In the study we will use the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) as well as two provinces in China (Shanxi and Hebei) as a reference and analyse the results from Poland and Shaanxi in the light of the development in these countries. The recommendations will provide decision makers with a basis for evaluating gender equality in technological research and for including the gender issue as a focal point in their strategies.
From the beginning of the project the working group will build networks in order to utilise all the possible resources during the whole project. The goal is also to raise awareness and facilitate discussions on the issue among scholars and stakeholders. One such network includes reference persons and other experts to be consulted during the preparatory phase. After the first workshop a project-specific website will be created in order to provide timely information about the project to a broader public, individuals and societies, worldwide. In addition to the specific networks and website, media will be important for the external communication of the project.
Three workshops will be organised during the project - one each in Sweden, Poland and China. Local policy makers and other essential stakeholders (management of research institutions, representatives of NGOs) will be invited. The expectation is that they in turn will lobby for the issue in/to their own reference groups. Mobilisation of authorities provides prestige to the project paving the way for acceptance of the results and policy recommendations of the study.
The results of the study will be synthesised for the final conference. Chinese, Polish and Nordic representatives of research institutions, NGOs and technology enterprises as well as policy makers and individuals will participate. National and international representatives of scientific, technological and economic media will also be invited.
The output of the project will be finalised and summarised in a publication. Target groups for the book are academics, governments, investors, private and public technological R&D institutions, gender studies institutions, management consulting enterprises etc. The book facilitates dissemination of the results of the study. Eventually the book will be presented and distributed at relevant conferences, where members of the project will also present a research results. After the project life span, the enhanced knowledge of the researchers on these issues will provide input in conferences and future research work as well. It is hoped that policy makers and managers of research institutions will adopt the policy recommendations in their R&D strategies.
Expected Achievements & Impact
The study will increase the comprehension of untapped resources in technological R&D. Women’s social capital provides input for R&D, which can be utilised in gender-specific enduser analysis. By means of this input, the specific needs of women end-users of technical applications can be articulated and determined more effectively. The study will evoke discussion and debates on the importance of gender-specific studies in technological R&D as well as on the role of women in science.
The recommendations formulated in the study project are expected to increase public awareness of gender equality and encourage re-evaluations of gender roles in the society. The analysis of the interaction between women scientists and end-users will encourage technology providers to develop technical applications geared specifically towards women end-users and possibly also other special target groups (e.g. elderly people). Gender-specific R&D in rural applications decreases the burden of women end-users and provides more safe working conditions, which will allow women labourers to increase efficiency in agriculture.
The research results will also provide better comprehension of the role of science in technology development and thus of usability of applications of technology. E.g. the informants for the questionnaires will recognise better their own possibilities in the development process of technical applications.
As women are poorly represented as developers of technology and as a specific user group of technical applications, their impact has in general been insignificant in the research society. The research work will display the relevance of women scientists and gender-specific studies in technological R&D. This will highlight the status of women scientists as well as that of genderspecific end-user research.
Research institutions will be encouraged to evaluate socio-cultural factors and their impact on their own end-user analysis. More focused end-user analyses (such as gender-specific), require more interdisciplinary research in engineering and social sciences/humanities/business. This could lead to increased mobility of scientists within Asia and EU as well as with third countries.
Scientific cooperation and interdisciplinary approaches draw the interest of the private sector in public financed research, which mobilises women in R&D in private sector. Academic and scientific vitality as well as intervention of private sector will in turn encourage policy makers to increase focus on education of women scientists in R&D.
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