A gender-neutral process

In autumn 2016, the Swedish Research Council conducted gender equality observations in eight review panels in order to investigate whether there was further room for improvement in terms of procedures, instructions and other aspects that promote gender-neutral assessment of grant applications. This is the sixth time the Research Council has conducted gender equality observations.

The report shows the need to:

• Analyse how the Research Council’s instructions for evaluating the applicant’s competence in particular has an impact on the objective of gender equal distribution of research grants.
  
• Investigate the relationship between the distribution of grants by gender and the review panels’ composition, with specific reference to the members’ nationality.
  
• Consider making more effort to get more of the under-represented gender to apply for research grants.