Sex, gender, and intersectional factors can influence all stages of research or development processes, from strategic considerations for establishing priorities and building theory to more routine tasks of formulating questions, designing methodologies, and interpreting data. Many pitfalls can be avoided—and new ideas or opportunities identified—by designing, sex, gender and intersectional analysis into research from the start. Sex, gender, and intersectional analysis work alongside other methodologies in a field to provide yet further "controls" (or filters for bias) providing critical rigor in science, medicine, and engineering research, policy, and practice.

This section presents state-of-the-art methods of intersectional analysis. As with any set of methods, new ones will be fashioned and others discarded as circumstances change. The value of their implementation depends on the creativity of the research team. There is no recipe that can simply be plugged into research or development processes. Researchers will want to consider all methods and think creatively about how these methods can enhance their own research. Methods are applied in Case Studies.

See these methods in action in the Elsevier Research Academy Webinar on Sex and Gender-based Analysis. Londa Schiebinger and Cara Tannenbaum present: How to integrate sex, gender, and intersectional analysis into research. With Holly J. Falk-Krzesinski, VP for Research Intelligence on Global Strategic Networks, Elsevier, and Jessica Mills from Cell Press, Elsevier.

Sex, Gender, and Intersectional Analysis enhances each step of the research process:

General Methods

• Rethinking Research Priorities and Outcomes
• Rethinking Concepts and Theories
• Formulating Research Questions
• Analyzing Sex
• Analyzing Gender
• Analyzing how Sex and Gender Interact
• Intersectional Approaches
• Engineering Innovation Processes
• Co-creation and Participatory Research
• Rethinking Standards and Reference Models
• Rethinking Language and Visual Representations

Field Specific Methods

Health & Biomedicine

• Analyzing Gender in Health & Biomedicine
• Analyzing Sex in Tissues & Cells
• Analyzing Sex in Lab Animal Research
• Analyzing Sex in Biomedicine

Evolutionary Biology

• Gender-Aware Guidelines

AI

• Analyzing Gender and Intersectionality in Machine Learning
• Analyzing Gender and Intersectionality in Social Robotics

Marine Science

• Analyzing Sex in Hermaphroditic Species

Urban Planning/Transportation

• Gender Impact Assessment

Innovation

• Norm-Critical Innovation