Over the last decades, European higher education and research systems have been characterized by deep changes, due to globalization and marketization, that have dramatically transformed research careers. While doctoral and postdoctoral researchers constitute a fast-growing workforce, their working conditions have become increasingly precarious and their career prospects uncertain. Those processes tend to exacerbate and create new forms of gendered inequalities for young researchers, first and foremost women – that have been magnified by the COVID-19 crisis. Those inequalities are also reinforced by disparities within academia linked to other social determinants, such as origin, socioeconomic status, sexuality or ability.
VOICES is a COST Action that aims to increase the visibility of inequalities faced by Young Researchers and Innovators (YRIs) from a gender perspective, and to promote a sustainable dialogue between YRIs and stakeholders in the research ecosystem at the systemic level (European & national policy-makers) and at the institutional level (senior researchers, academic managers). VOICES is an EU-funded project involving 32 countries with the objective to create a community of gender equality practitioners composed of various stakeholders (YRIs, independent researchers, academic managers, organizations).
The VOICES project is led by Professor Anne-Sophie Godfroy (Action Chair and Grant Holder Scientific Representative). She is associate professor of Philosophy at University Paris-Est-Creteil-Val-de-Marne and researcher at the research centre “Science Norms Decision” (SND, FRE 3593), a joint lab of the CNRS and the University Paris Sorbonne. Her main research interests are methodology for international comparisons, science in society, gender. For ten years, she has participated in several European research projects about gender and Science & Technology.
The VOICES COST Action and its activities will therefore pay attention to the multiple dimensions of careers and non-linear career paths of YRIs with an intersectional perspective. VOICES has among its outcomes: training schools for YRIs, scientific publications by YRIs, recommendations & guidelines for academics and policy-makers. VOICES will become a network of networks that gives a voice to YRIs.
On this website www.gendervoices.eu we will be reporting on the progress of our networking. If you want to participate, you can apply through the COST website. https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA20137/#tabs+Name:Description
