What is Gendered Innovations?
Gendered Innovations employ sex and gender analysis as a resource to create new knowledge and technology.
The peer-reviewed Gendered Innovations project:
1) develops practical methods of sex and gender analysis for scientists and engineers;
2) provides case studies as concrete illustrations of how sex and gender analysis leads to innovation.
Video Londa Schiebinger discusses the project in the video clip below:
Why Gendered Innovations?
Thirty years of research have revealed that sex and gender bias can be socially harmful and expensive. For example, between 1997 and 2000, 10 drugs were withdrawn from the U.S. market because of life-threatening health effects. Eight of these posed "greater health risks for women than for men" (U.S. GAO, 2001). It is crucially important to identify gender bias and understand how it operates in science and technology. But analysis cannot stop there: Analyzing sex and gender prospectively can serve as a resource to stimulate new knowledge and technologies. From the start, sex and gender analyses act as additional “controls” (or filters for bias) to provide excellence in science, health & medicine, and engineering research, policy, and practice. The methods of sex and gender analysis are one set of methods among many that a researcher will bring to a project.
Gendered Innovations:
● Add value to research and engineering by ensuring excellence and quality in outcomes and enhancing sustainability.
● Add value to society by making research more responsive to social needs.
● Add value to business by developing new ideas, patents, and technology.
The Gendered Innovations project offers sophisticated methods of sex and gender analysis to stimulate the creation of gender-responsible science and technology, thereby enhancing the quality of life for both women and men worldwide. For a background paper, see Interdisciplinary Approaches to Achieving Gendered Innovations in Science, Medicine, and Engineering.
Goal of the Gendered Innovations Project:
The goal of the Gendered Innovations project is to provide scientists and engineers with practical methods for sex and gender analysis. Since the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), the European Commission (EC) has asked researchers to address “Whether, and in what sense, sex and gender are relevant in the objectives and the methodology of the project .” This will also be a key part of Horizon 2020. The Gendered Innovations project supports this goal. To match the global reach of science and technology, methods of sex and gender analysis were developed through international collaborations. Gendered Innovations involves experts from across the U.S. and the EU 27 Member States. The project was developed through a series of peer-reviewed workshops (see Contributors).
Sex and Gender Analysis Lead to Gendered Innovations:
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Project Background:
The current Gendered Innovations project was initiated at Stanford University, July 2009. In January 2011 the European Commission set up an expert group on “Innovation through Gender” for two years with the aim of developing the gender dimension in EU research and innovation. The U.S. National Science Foundation joined the project in January 2012. Gendered Innovations has also collaborated in the development of the 2010 genSET Consensus Report and the United Nations Resolutions related to Gender, Science and Technology passed March 2011.
The Gendered Innovations project was developed through a series of workshops: Stanford University (February 2011); Fraunhofer, Berlin (March 2011); Maastricht University (July 2011); Ministry for Higher Education and Research, Paris (March 2012); Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, Madrid (May 2012); Harvard University (July 2012); and European Commission, Brussels (September 2012). Writing and website work was done primarily at Stanford University.
How to Use this Website:
This website has six interactive main portals:
1. Methods of sex and gender analysis for research and engineering
2. Case studies illustrate how sex and gender analysis leads to innovation
3. Terms address key concepts used throughout the site
4. Checklists for researchers, engineers, and evaluators
5. Policy provides recommendations in addition to links to key national and international policies that support Gendered Innovations
6. Institutional Transformation summarizes current literature on: 1) increasing the numbers of women in science, health & medicine, and engineering; 2) removing subtle gender bias from research institutions; and 3) solutions and best practices.
The term "Gendered Innovations" was coined by Londa Schiebinger in 2005.
© European Union, 2011© Stanford University, 2011
Works Cited
United States General Accounting Office. (2001). Drug Safety: Most Drugs withdrawn in Recent Years had Greater Health Risks for Women. Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office.
