Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-20-Speech-2-469"
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"en.20080520.34.2-469"2
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"Mr President, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I am glad that today we can put women and research high up on the agenda, as I believe that it is a pivotal issue for Europe with regard to fulfilment of the Lisbon Strategy. Europe must create more jobs; we must create better jobs and we must become stronger in research and innovation. In each of these three tasks, women are an essential part of the solution. We must have more women in work, and we must have more women in managerial positions and decision-making bodies. If we in Europe are to create up to 700 000 research positions in the coming years, we must also become better at utilising our female talent base.
At a general level, I had two objectives in drawing up this report. Firstly, I wanted to set out the status of the current situation. What is the proportion of women in research and why are things so bad? Secondly, I wanted to look ahead and come up with solutions and suggestions as to how we can improve this situation. The situation is not satisfactory at the present time. Women comprise an average of just 35% of researchers working in the public sector and 18% of researchers working in the private sector. Furthermore, even though women make up more than 50% of EU students and achieve 43% of doctoral degrees, they hold only 15% of senior academic posts. We can therefore see a marked distortion in relation to the representation of women in decision-making and managerial positions.
Our own recently created institutions such as the European Research Council are also failing to meet any equality criteria. Just 5 of the 22 members of this research council are women. I have also emphasised the fact that in most European countries there is a still a marked under-representation of women on scientific committees – yet another example of women’s lack of representation in decision-making bodies.
I would like to say a little more about the second, and perhaps more interesting, part of my report, namely the forward-looking solutions and proposals. I listened carefully to the input that was given during the consultation process held in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, and one of the clear points that arose was that it was first and foremost a matter of drawing up policies for the area. If this problem area is ignored at both national and institutional level, nothing will happen. In my report I therefore included a requirement for the Member States and the Commission to set a target of at least 40% women in all recruitment and evaluation panels. I believe that this is absolutely essential. If we are to change the situation, we must ensure that there are more women in decision-making bodies, so that efforts can be made from the top down to create a new culture. I have also called for more open recruitment procedures. Experience shows that closed recruitment procedures very much favour men, who point to each other as being the best qualified.
I have also made it clear in my report that we must not shrink away from positive action if we are to harbour hopes of correcting the situation relatively quickly. After all, our own figures indicate that there are currently no naturally positive developments. I have therefore recommended that special funding be set aside to promote female researchers and to focus on the importance of networks and role models as simple initiatives, which have produced positive results in the Member States. Very simple initiatives such as a sentence stating that women in particular are encouraged to apply have also produced good results.
My work on this report therefore shows that there are many barriers. It is of course important that there are good opportunities to combine life as a researcher with family life, with the opportunity to take maternity leave even if you are a PhD student, but it is also a matter of culture. Cultural barriers are of course more difficult to express in a formula, but in reality – like the more concrete barriers – it is a matter of focusing on some of the distortions. I will say no more here, but I look forward to hearing your comments on the report."@en1
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