A gender-equal process: A qualitative investigation of the assessment of research grant applications 2023

Over a number of years, the Swedish Research Council has accumulated knowledge on how to promote gender equality in research funding. One tool used by the agency is gender equality observations.

These observations aim to scrutinise, from a gender equality perspective, the meetings where experts discuss research grant applications submitted to the agency. These meetings are a central part of the Swedish Research Council’s process for allocating research grants, a process that aims to allocate funding to basic research of the highest quality.

This report is based on observations from meetings in 14 review panels in 2023. It provides good documentation for the Swedish Research Council’s continuing discussions and contributes to the work on further improving the quality of the Council´s processes.