Equastream Project
The Equastream project is a project started at Luleå University of Technology. The overall goal of the project is to strive for excellence in research through gender-equal and inclusive collaborations and strategic partnerships and thus increase funding opportunities in academia. The aim is to contribute to internationalisation and sustainable collaboration opportunities through a stringent connection between its purpose, goals, objectives and actions. We want to contribute to increased international and sustainable collaboration opportunities within the partnership and promote inclusive strategic partnerships. The EquaStream project Studies show that gender bias in workplaces including academia is still an issue. Women and men do not have equal opportunities to develop their academic careers. Universities also tend to promote researchers in male-dominated technical areas, and researchers from other fields feel that they are hindered in their careers. The EquaStream project will showcase and increase understanding about gender bias and structural challenges that women face in their career development. The overall goal of the project is to strive for excellence in research through gender equal and inclusive collaborations and strategic partnerships and thus increase funding opportunities in academia. EquaStream will use gender-mainstreaming in practice as a strategy to achieve the project goal and promote sustainable results. The key project activities are knowledge-sharing, testing and implementing tools and methods aimed to eliminate structural bias, create inclusive culture and promote organisational change. The Methods Genovate Toolkit – Paula Wennberg The Genovate Toolkit is a toolbox with processes, methods and tools for gender equality work within research and innovation. It is mainly about how the gender- and diversity-conscious innovative systems are created. Website: https://genovate.cdt.ltu.se/sv/skapa-hallbar-forandring/ Richer Business – Lena Abrahamsson This method-website can be used by companies and organizations that want to create more inclusive value chains in their businesses, where more people's skills and driving forces are utilized in the development of new goods and services. Through different scenarios in six areas you can develop your business model to become more competitive. Website: https://richerbusiness.eu/ Project owner, Luleå University of Technology Eugenia Segerstedt Eugenia is a researcher at Human Work Sciences, managing projects where gender equality and inclusion are the main focus. She is contributing to university involvement in social innovative collaboration, internally, nationally and on EU level, has a PhD in Human work science that gives her work environment perspective on internationalisation. She has experience in organising new groups using English, Swedish and Russian as her work languages, and a knowledge of context in Sweden, Poland, Georgia and Armenia. She views internationalization as an important tool for equal opportunities in those contexts. Contact: eugenia.segerstedt@ltu.se University website: https://www.ltu.se/ You can find information about all partners here.
Trip to Georgia, June 9-10: First in-person meeting in six months after only collaborating online.
In the beginning of June we had our first meeting in real life since we started the partnership of the Equastream Project. It was a two-days conference in Tbilisi, Georgia. GIPA (Georgian Institute of Public Affairs) greeted all participants upon arrival for the cross-sectoral meetings called Frontline. All participating Universities presented the results of their testing of the Genovate Tool-kit. There were lots of rewarding discussions about how the tool can be used in and adapted for local conditions. Paula Wennberg, one of the experts behind the Genovate Tool-kit and a representative from Luleå University of Technology and Gender Contact Point gave feedback and feed forward to the Group. Britt-Marie S. Torstensson, president of Winnet Sweden, helped the group to widen their perspective to the strategic level and reflect about what resources are needed to create change over time. She is an expert in the Quadruple Helix partnership method with combines theory and practice in research and development.
Here are some of the participants in the itinerary:
There emerged some new ideas about how to work with equality and inclusiveness in work environment, both within and outside the project.
Systematic work with work environment for inclusion means that researchers, students and teachers should be able to contribute to development in academia and thrive in their workspace, or area of studies, regardless of gender.
The way we work with internationalizations within the EquaStream project we strengthen that change and create new academic contacts between higher education institutes.