Project:
Gender Impact Assessment – Review of the Hanseatic City of Bremen’s Support Program for Applied Environmental Research (1996-2001)
Project head:
Ines Weller
Project head:
Cooperation:
Ines Weller,
Karin Fischer Universität Bremen
Fachbereich Produktionstechnik und Zentrum für feministische Studien
Client:
Mittel der angewandten Umweltforschung des Landes Bremen, Senator für Bau und Umwelt
Duration
03/2002-05/2003
finished
Gender Impact Assessment – Review of the Hanseatic City of Bremen’s Support Program for Applied Environmental Research (1996-2001)
with Respect to Gender Specific Effects and Derivation of Recommendations for a Sustainable Further Development
What effects do policy measures have on gender relations? Do they help reach the goal of equalization between the sexes?
Such questions have, since the initiation of the European Union’s gender mainstreaming strategy, become a focus of attention. The state, with its support programs and institutional structures, has been called upon to respond. The instrument, “Gender Impact Assessment,” has been used in this connection to review the effects of policy measures on women, men and gender relations.
The Bremen project examines the direct and indirect implication of gender relations, and the effects of the support program for applied environmental research. In particular, the project studies the differences in access to the application for funding process, the distribution of funding resources and the differences in scope of action within funded projects, all in terms of gender.
One goal of the project is to achieve greater participation on the part of women, both in terms of the number of women researchers and in terms of the subject matter of the project (consideration of gender specific interests, needs and life situations). Moreover, investigating the role of gender within environmental research will throw more light on the social dimensions of ecological problems and on the interaction of natural scientific and technical aspects with social aspects.
The research project will review the given approaches to gender impact assessment and will be geared to the specific requirements of environmental research in Bremen. The following work steps are planned:
- secondary analysis of the project documentation for the Hanseatic City of Bremen’s support program for applied environmental research (1996-2001) in order determine the explicit and implicit role of gender
- interviews with specialists to deepen and broaden initial results
- deriving recommendations for the further development of applied research in Bremen which are in line with gender mainstreaming requirements
- discussion of recommendations in a workshop attended by specialists from administration, policy and research, with a summary of the results at the end
ISOE’s job is to bring to bear on the research project its experience with the development and implementation of the instrument, “Gender Impact Assessment.” This experience was gathered in the course of working on two projects: “Gender Impact Assessment within the Subprogram, ‘Environment and Sustainable Development,’ of the EU’s 5th Research Framework Program” and “Gender Impact Assessment in the Area of Radiation Protection and Environment” (under contract from the Federal Ministry for the Environment).