Three environments will share 60 million for gender research

The international panel of judges was impressed by Swedish research. The most important criterion was the groups’ potential to become leaders in the international field.

New thinking and tangible plans on how to become leaders in the international field were the most important selection criteria when an international panel of judges chose Centers of Excellence within gender research for the first time.

One of the most important objectives of the call for proposals is to increase internationalisation of Swedish gender research. The international panel of judges was impressed by the quality of the applications and unanimous on the environments that should be financed.

The three chosen environments are:

– Nature/Culture Boundaries and Transgressive Encounters,
Margaretha Fahlgren, Uppsala Centre for Gender Research
– Challenging gender – a research programme at Umeå advanced gender studies,
Britta Lundgren, Umeå University
– Gendering EXcellence – GEXcel: towards a European Centre of Excellence in transnational and transdisciplinary studies of changing gender relations, intersectionalities and embodiment, Nina Lykke, Linköping University in cooperation with Örebro University

A total of 60 million SEK will be distributed to these Centers of Gender Excellence. They will each receive 20 million SEK over a five-year period.

The activity will be followed up at the chosen environments at the turn of the year 07/08. There were ten applications in total from six universities. A report describing the preparatory work will be published at www.vr.se frome december 5th.

The international panel was composed of:

Professor Marian Simms, Political Studies Department, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, marian.simms@stonebow.otago.ac.nz

Professor Sara Arber, University of Surrey, Dept of Sociology, Surrey, England, s.arber@surrey.ac.uk

Professor Yvonne Benschop, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen School of Management, HK Nijmegen, The Netherlands, y.benschop@fm.ru.nl

Professor Kinhide Mushakoji, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan, QWD00105@nifty.ne.jp

Ph.D. Karen Offen, The Michelle Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University, USA, kmoffen@stanford.edu

Professor Susan P Phillips, Queen’s University, Dept of Family Medicine, Kingston, Canada

phillip@post.queensu.ca