Symposium Gendered Innovations

On July 2nd the LNVH and KNAW co-organised a symposium on Gendered Innovations: sex and gender dimensions in the content of research. Please find a description of the programme below.

How innovative and applicable can research be to the challenges posed by our world today if it is primarily concerned with the problems of only half of its population? That is the question to which we hope to find the answer during this mini-symposium.

In 2009 the European Commission launched a project at Stanford University to investigate how science can innovate and improve research by emphasising what goes wrong when sex and gender differences are ignored in the design and execution of research. The project's website has mind-boggling examples and the full project report.

Horizon 2020 programme

There is another good reason to integrate gender into research. Not only does it lead to innovation and prevent harm, but it is also a new criterion for obtaining European research funding. The European Commission has made 80 billion euros available for innovative research within its Horizon 2020 programme. In order to qualify for a European research grant, researchers must integrate potential gender aspects into their research. If the Netherlands wishes to remain at the forefront of research, it must continue to innovate. We therefore cannot ignore possible sex and gender differences. If we do, European research funding will go to parties that do not.

Keynote lectures and panel discussion

• Catholijn Jonker, Professor of Interactive Intelligence at Delft University of Technology, chair of the Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH) – Introduction
• Ineke Klinge, Professor of Gender Medicine at the Institute of Gender in Medicine (GiM)/Charité, Universitätsmedizin, Berlin. Chair of the H2020 Advisory Group on Gender – Gendered Innovations: how gender analysis contributes to research
• Viviane Willis-Mazzichi, Head of the Sector ‘Gender’, DG Research & Innovation, European Commission – Gender provisions in Horizon 2020

Followed by a panel discussion led by Sandra Rottenberg, journalist and producer

Panelists:

• Keynote speakers Ineke Klinge and Viviane Willis-Mazzichi
• Margo van den Berg, Programme Officer at ZonMW, Research Coordinator for 'Alliantie Gender & Gezondheid'
• Annelien Bredenoord, Associate Professor of Biomedical Ethics at UMC Utrecht, member of the Academy's Young Academy and member of the Dutch Parliament (D66)
• Coenraad Krijger, Director of Policy Development at NWO (the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research/Dutch Research Council)
• Els Veenis, Senior Policy Advisor at the Department of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), Directorate for Gender Equality
• Petra Verdonk, Psychologist with a PhD in Gender Mainstreaming in Medical Education, Assistant Professor at the Dept. Medical Humanities, VU University Medical Center, EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, School of Medical Sciences