Line Matthiessen, Head of the Unit "Fighting infectious diseases and global epidemics


Ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning and thank you very much for inviting me to open the 'Women's 2014 Careers and Networks' meeting.
Women and science is an issue which is close to my heart.

I have organised a number of meetings on this topic, such as the EC-US Task Force on Biotechnology workshop "A global need for women's biotech leadership" , and I'm currently a member of the Equal Opportunity working group within my own organisation: The Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission.
Gender equality is not simply a question of fairness. Nor is it simply a question of what's right. It is a question of ensuring that no talent, no ideas, no efforts are wasted simply because they come from a woman rather than a man. The challenges facing our society and economy mean that we cannot miss out any ideas.

Women constitute about half of the recipients of degrees in the biological sciences in Europe and the United States. It is also well known that women in life sciences start out as student and graduates with better grades. Yet in leadership and advisory roles in biotech firms, among corporate decision makers in global pharmaceutical corporations, in the ranking of full professorship in universities, and even among the top scientific administrative roles in government agencies women are poorly represented. European analyses, for example, emphasize the 'scissors' shape trend found in the data on women's and men's participation at different academic ranks. Women are more highly represented than men as students at the undergraduate level, but men's academic representation surpasses women's at the PhD level and beyond. This biasing of women's participation as researchers rather than as leaders in scientific organisations means that we are missing out on talented leadership.
The benefit of diverse leadership, especially in solving difficult and complex problems, has been demonstrated in a variety of social science research. For example, the 'value in diversity' hypothesis finds consistent effects on productivity. Diverse leadership is also profitable. Several studies of US organisations have found that firms with more gender diversity in management roles have greater sales revenue, more customers and more effective governance.

These and many other studies confirm that in a world of recession including more women in leadership roles would lead to more innovation.
The pressing problems of the world require interdisciplinary approaches and innovative solutions. Mitigation of climate change, lifestyle diseases, and feeding and funding an increasing world population requires an understanding that goes beyond geological, biological and even economic systems.

An understanding of the everyday sociology of human behaviour and organisations around the globe needs to be integrated with an understanding of biological and physical systems. Early evidence from studies of interdisciplinarity suggests that women scientists, under-represented minority scholars and younger researchers are more drawn to developing interdisciplinary collaborative knowledge. Although more research needs to be carried out, it would seem that diversity and interdisciplinarity are complementary. This again indicates that women's leadership in science is needed for addressing the challenging multi-faceted issues that we are confronted with.

The 'She Figures' published by European Commission since 2003, show that we are far from achieving gender equality in research. Gender imbalance is not a self-correcting phenomenon. Proactive policies are needed.
The European Commission has strongly reinforced gender equality in Horizon 2020 (H2020), the EU's new funding programme for research and innovation with a budget of more than ?80 billion over the next seven years.
With H2020, the Commission was determined to push gender from the margins to the centre. The improvements we have made aren't just cosmetic changes aimed at 'gender-washing' or making H2020 more politically correct.

Gender issues are articulated loud and clear throughout the research cycle, from expert advice to the Commission on the design of the programmes, to evaluation of the proposals and the gender balance of the research teams that win funding.
Across the European Commission, the general goal is for the under-represented sex to make up 40% of the members of expert groups, evaluator groups and advisory panels. But H2020 aims higher, with a 50% target for its advisory groups and at least one expert with gender expertise.
H2020 also provides a clear incentive to applicants to ensure gender balance in their research teams. If two proposals receive exactly the same scores on all evaluation criteria, gender balance will be one of the factors in deciding which proposal is ranked higher.

H2020 also promotes the gender dimension in research and innovation cohort to ensure that it takes into account the needs, behaviours and attitudes of both women and men.
Finally, once funding is awarded, beneficiaries must commit to promoting equal opportunities in the implementation of the action, and aim for gender balance in the staff working in the project.
With H2020's new approach, the EC is going further than many Member States and I'm happy to say that we are also pioneers on the international scene.
The European Commission also has its own gender policy. The new Commission has set a target of 40% female senior and middle managers by 2019. DG Research and Innovation has some progress to make as today 35.7% of senior managers, that is directors and above, are women and 30.9% of middle management (heads of unit).
Let me finish by some personal notes and recommendations:
I have work for the Commission for more than 20 years, and have met many researchers. When we carry out evaluation of our proposals, I have very often met women who say:"No I can't evaluate this proposal; I don't have the expertise, etc?." I have never heard a man saying the same!
Within the Commission I often meet women saying: "No I don't want to take up a leadership role, it is too much work, I won't manage." Being a manager does require work but it is another type of work and not necessary more work as you need to learn to delegate the work and concentrate on the essential strategic work and the management of human resources.

We, women, have to stop being self-limiting. Of course we can and we should!
I wish you a successful meeting!

The views expressed in this speech are the sole responsibility of the speaker and does not necessarily reflect the view of the European Commission. Neither the European Commission, nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission, is responsible for the use that might be made of the information contained therein.