Action plan for gender mainstreaming

The Action Plan for Forte’s Gender Mainstreaming Work 2022–2025 serves as the foundation for Forte’s long-term work on gender mainstreaming. An annual activity plan is developed in connection with regular operational planning. The action plan was adopted by Forte’s Director General.

Gender-equal allocation of research funding

A key goal in Forte’s gender mainstreaming work is to ensure that researchers have equal opportunities to access research funding from Forte. To achieve this, gender-mainstreamed review processes are required, aimed at objective and gender-neutral assessments. The achievement of this goal is measured over several years, rather than by the outcome of any single year.

In recent years, there have been no alarming trends regarding differences in success rates between women and men applying for funding from Forte. This may indicate that the review processes are gender mainstreamed. However, it is important to continuously monitor developments through selected indicators and reviews of how the review processes function.

Indicators for goal achievement

The outcomes of all funding decisions are reported annually, disaggregated by gender, including:

• Success rate for main applicants (application pressure vs. grants awarded)
• Total and average amounts awarded
• Differences between various calls
• Differences between funding types
• Areas for further development in goal formulation and indicator selection

Forte supports increased collaboration and co-creation in research, involving actors outside academia (such as public officials, practitioners, service users, the general public). Other funders have begun discussing what this means from a gender equality perspective at the societal level. Forte may also need to explore this further.

In recent years, women have been in the majority as both main applicants and co-applicants in funded projects. While multiple factors may explain this, they can be difficult for a funding agency to influence. One approach could be to analyse the researcher base within Forte’s areas from a gender perspective. The Swedish Research Council (VR) has previously conducted analyses of potential applicants in various fields, which could serve as a starting point. This topic also aligns with Forte’s role as a JiM agency and its collaboration with JiHU, relating to equitable distribution of research resources on a broader level.

One way to shed light on this issue is Forte’s gender-disaggregated reporting of participating researchers in applications. However, such data must be contextualised within the broader structure of academia and research policy from a gender equality perspective to provide meaningful insight—potentially forming the basis for a joint agency-level analytical project.

Gender-balanced review panels

Forte’s mandate to strive for gender balance in its review bodies aligns with the national gender equality policy sub-goal: “An even distribution of power and influence. Women and men shall have the same rights and opportunities to be active citizens and to shape the conditions for decision-making in all areas of society.”

The goal is for all Forte review panels, including temporary ones, to maintain gender balance (neither women nor men should make up less than 40% of members), and for the distribution of chairs across panels to also be gender-balanced.

In recent years, panel membership has been evenly balanced overall. However, there has been a predominance of men as chairs, though in 2021, gender balance among chairs was achieved. These trends highlight the importance of continuous monitoring and developing processes to support gender-equal recruitment of panel members and chairs.

Indicators for goal achievement

The composition of all review panels is reported annually, disaggregated by gender, including:

• Panel members
• Panel chairs

Development areas for goal descriptions and indicator selection

These quantitative indicators should be complemented by more qualitative indicators to assess how well gender-balanced panels fulfil the gender equality policy goal.

For example, to examine whether men and women have equal influence, equal speaking time, and similar impact within panels, observer studies could be conducted—similar to those previously carried out by the Swedish Research Council. These could serve as a model for similar studies in Forte’s panels. Another option is to expand the panel member survey with questions from a gender mainstreaming perspective.

Forte-funded research contributes to a gender-equal and sustainable society

Forte contributes to gender equality policy goals through the research it funds. Research in Forte’s areas of responsibility—health, working life, and welfare—has the potential to support all six of Sweden’s gender equality sub-goals.

Gender equality policy in Swede (government.se) External link.

While establishing a causal logic for societal impact from research is known to be difficult, Forte has initiated work to develop outcome indicators. As a first step, Forte assumes that the research it funds may contribute to gender equality by:

• Using sex as a variable (often combined with other categories), generating knowledge about differences between women and men that can support better services, conditions, and policy-making.
• Employing a gender-theoretical or intersectional approach, contributing to greater understanding of the social and cultural processes that shape gender perceptions and influence both societal structures and individual identity, as well as to theoretical development.

This is reflected in the application forms for Forte funding, where applicants are asked whether a sex and gender perspective is relevant and to justify their answer.

Applications must also indicate whether the research contributes to Agenda 2030 and the Global Goals for Sustainable Development—particularly Goal 5: Gender Equality—which can serve as an additional indicator.

Indicators for Goal Achievement

• Proportion of funded projects that include a sex and gender perspective
• Proportion of funded projects that indicate relevance to Agenda 2030 Goal 5: Gender Equality

Development areas for goal descriptions and indicator selection

These indicators were used for the first time in Forte’s 2021 annual report. Results showed that around 97% of successful applicants indicated that a sex or gender perspective was relevant to their research, with justification provided.

Additionally, 39% stated that their research was relevant to Goal 5: Gender Equality under Agenda 2030.

While the results suggest that Forte strongly supports research with potential to promote gender equality, the data also raise questions and highlight the need for improved indicators and clearer goal definitions.

Further analysis is needed to:

• Understand the gap between the proportion identifying a gender perspective as relevant and those linking their research to Agenda 2030 Goal 5
• Examine how researchers justify the relevance of a gender perspective to develop more qualitative indicators
• Assess the final reports from completed projects as a basis for refining indicators and goal formulations

Activities

As part of Forte’s annual operational planning, a detailed plan is created for gender mainstreaming activities for the upcoming year. This planning is based on Forte’s mandate, the strategic documents listed in the appendices, and this action plan for 2022–2025. Planning also incorporates needs identified through ongoing analysis and monitoring.