About Integrating Gender Analysis into Research

Although most researchers would now agree that it is important to integrate a sex and/or gender analysis into research, doing so is often quite challenging irrespective of the discipline or study focus. There are still theoretical and conceptual questions about what exactly “sex” and “gender” are and the boundaries of sex/gender analysis. For example, how do we avoid conflating women and gender? How can we integrate intersectionality into considerations of   gender to account for other axes of domination such as class, race, age, ability? Analyses including sex or gender are essential to the interpretation, validation, reproducibility and generalizability of research findings, which ultimately impact on policies and decision-making that enhance social equalities. Findings from research need to be applicable to the whole society. The aim of this call for papers is to invite submissions from Gender-NET Plus Co-Fund investigators and others, on the processes and results of research within and between sexes or genders.

Researchers from all disciplinary fields will benefit from this collection. Questions persist about how to best integrate gender when planning and formulating a research project and when doing data collection and analysis. These are often questions requiring thoughtful consideration and it is useful to have input and discussion from other researchers who have faced the same or similar questions and challenges. The collection aims at providing a global perspective on the integration of sex and gender in research. The multiple disciplines and perspectives included should provide insights to researchers, policy-makers (from research producing organizations and research funding organizations), and practitioners on how to better integrate sex and gender in scientific research. 

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Theoretical approaches to “sex” and “gender”; definitional challenges
• Methodological and ethical issues related to integrating gender into research. Including how to reach and include people of all gender identities in research? What is real participatory research on gender issues? How to do research ethically, especially in contexts working with marginalized or vulnerable populations? How to restitute the research results to participants so that they benefit from this research? How to be sure that the result will have a positive impact on promoting gender equality?
• Intersectional approaches to gender
• What was learned from integrating “sex and gender” into the study (either related to study processes and results or personal reflections)

This collection accepts a range of article types offered by Open Research Europe - research articles, reviews, case studies, data notes, method articles, essays, software tools, open letter, and more, which varies according to disciplinary fields (see Articles Guidelines).

All article processing charges will be covered centrally by the European Commission.