Research for the whole of society

Why should researchers take different categories of gender in account in their work, as well as intersectionality, i.e. other potentially discriminatory factors such as cultural origin, age, or disability?

If researchers do not take these categories into account, the results can be biased and, in the worst case, this can cost human lives. In our first case study on cardiovascular disease, for example, we showed how analyzing biological sex in clinical research has led researchers to understand that that heart disease often presents with different pathophysiology in women than in men, especially in younger adults.

What obstacles do researchers face when integrating sex, gender, and intersectionality into their studies?

The greatest barrier is that researchers in the natural sciences, health and medicine, and engineering typically do not know how to do sophisticated sex and gender analyses—and even fewer still know what intersectionality is. Critical sex and gender analysis was developed in the humanities and social sciences, and has, for the most part, not made its way across disciplinary divides to other parts of the university. This omission is especially problematic in medical schools. To deliver the best care, professors need to incorporate the latest methods, techniques, and findings related to categories of sex, gender, and other factors throughout the curriculum.

Are there institutional requirements regarding the inclusion of gender and intersectional considerations in research projects?

In its most recent funding program, the European Commission is now requiring applicants to integrate a sex, gender, and/or intersectional analysis into their research design – or to justify why it is not relevant in their case. It may not be pertinent in pure mathematics or theoretical physics, but it is for the vast majority of fields. The new EU policy means that all researchers – from humanities scholars to medical scientists and systems engineers –- must include this type of analysis where relevant. The idea is that if taxpayer money is to be used, the research should thus benefit the whole of society. The Gendered Innovations project at Stanford has been working with the European Commission since 2011 to provide methodologies and case studies to support this policy.

What is this project about?

Over the past forty years, my research has focused on three analytically distinct but interwoven components: the history of women’s participation in science, the structure of scientific institutions, and the gendered nature of human knowledge. The third aspect has resulted in the Gendered Innovations project, which aims to provide practical methods and guidelines for scientists from all disciplines to conduct analyses that consider categories of gender and other factors. We developed these materials over multiple years in cooperation with a number of international collaborators, including the European Commission, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and Stanford University. We’ve now expanded into Japan, South Africa, South Korea, and Uruguay; institutes for Gendered Innovations research opened in Korea in 2015 and in Japan in 2022. And we have collaborated with more than 220 experts from Europe, the United States, Canada, and Asia to date. It’s very exciting to see over 40 examples – on stem cells, osteoporosis research in men, artificial intelligence, gendered social robots, and marine research, and much more – on our website that show in very concrete terms how gendered and/or intersectional analyses can lead to new discoveries, insights, and innovations.