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Gender in Transition Institutions, norms, identities Policy Document The Research Council of Norway Contents 1 Background and assumptions ....................................................3 1.1 Programme background .......................................................3 1.2 The Programme Committee .................................................4 1.3 Objectives and mandate .......................................................5 1.4 The policy document ...........................................................6 2 Fields of research: ......................................................................7 2.1 Women’s research in Norway .............................................7 2.2 Current challenges ...............................................................10 3 Research priorities .....................................................................13 3.1 New forms of working life ..................................................13 3.2 Individual rights and institutional norms.............................15 3.3 Gender, religion and cultural conflicts ................................16 3.4 Cultural coding of the body .................................................17 3.5 Sexuality, gender and ambiguity .........................................19 3.6 Feminism as critique ............................................................20 4 Organisation, way of working and means .................................23 4.1 Project organisation .............................................................23 4.2 Forms of support ..................................................................24 4.3 Internationalisation ..............................................................25 4.4 Communication/publication ................................................26 4.5 Research manager ................................................................27 2 1 Background and assumptions 1.1 Programme background In January 1996, the Research Board for Culture and Society adopted a programme for women’s and gender research that was scheduled to begin in the autumn of 1996 and last until the end of the year 2001. The programme, Gender in transition: institutions, norms, identities, is the result of a relatively lengthy preparatory phase during which research centres actively proposed various research topics and forms of organisation. This programme memorandum is based on a study conducted by a special working group appointed by the Research Council of Norway’s Division of Culture and Society.1 The programme is intended to develop further the work begun in connection with two programmes for Basic Women’s Research in the humanities and social sciences, respectively, both of which were completed in 1994.2 This means that the primary focus of the programme will be on basic research and long-term human resources development. The programme will cover the humanities and social sciences alike, and contribute to interdisciplinary cooperation. 1 2 Proposal for a new programme for Women’s and Gender Research under the auspices of the Research Council of Norway’s Division of Culture and Society, January 1996. The Programme for Basic Women’s Research in the Social Sciences, the Council for Social Science Research, the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF), and the Programme for Basic Women’s Research in the Humanities, the Council for Research in the Humanities, the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF). 3 1.2 The Programme Committee The Research Council of Norway appointed a Programme Committee to serve from 1 June 1996 until 30 June 2002. The committee’s term of office extends for six months after completion of the programme to facilitate post-programme evaluation and the dissemination of information about the results. The Programme Committee has the following composition: Professor Gro Hagemann, Institute for Social Research, Oslo (Chair) Professor Jonas Frykman, Department of Ethnology, University of Lund, Sweden Senior Lecturer Elin Kvande, Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology Assistant Director General Gerd Vollset, Ministry of Children and Family Affairs Senior Lecturer Anka Ryall, Department of Languages and Literature, University of Tromsø Senior Lecturer Hege Skjeie, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo Attorney-at-Law Oskar Rønbeck, Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) Head of research Tian Sørhaug, Centre for Studies of Technology, Innovation and Culture, Univeristy of Oslo Special Adviser Ingebjørg Strøno of the Research Council of Norway’s Division of Culture and Society will serve as secretary for the Programme Committee. 4 1.3 Objectives and mandate The primary objective of Gender in transition is to help develop fruitful new approaches to research on gender. The programme will strive to promote high-quality professional efforts and to meet Norway’s need to develop and maintain research expertise in the field. The programme will attempt to reconcile the need to develop theory with a proactive approach to research. Further, the programme will promote contact between researchers, public administrators, politicians, business and industry in an effort to identify research needs and to contribute to the constructive dissemination of research results. Efforts will be invested in developing and maintaining broad, multidisciplinary scholarly expertise. At the same time, the programme will contribute to the development of knowledge within the individual disciplines. The strong international element inherent in the women’s research performed in Norway will be promoted through more contact with international researchers and further expansion of international networks. In addition, when allocating research funds, the Programme Committee will assign priority to the development of theories that may have international applications. The programme is intended to provide incentives for the development of networks and inter- and multidisciplinary cooperation, including cooperation outside the scope of the programme projects. The Programme Committee will strive to forge links with other Research Council divisions and programmes with which cooperation is appropriate. It is important to integrate a focus on women’s and gender research into other research. One of the objectives of the programme is to contribute to the public debate on current social problems related to long-term processes of cultural and institutional change, as well as to the challenges inherent in formulating policies aimed at ensuring equal rights in working life, education, politics and the family. 5 1.4 The policy document The policy document for Gender in transition: institutions, norms, identities was drawn up by the Programme Committee, and represents the Committee’s most important views on research policy, as well as on the fields of research and the research perspectives that will receive support. The ranking of priorities is the result of a long process involving research institutions, the Research Board for Culture and Society and independent organisations. In addition to acting as guidelines for the Programme Committee, this policy document is intended to be a source of information for researchers, political bodies and the public at large. The programme is largely being funded by the Research Council of Norway. Partial funding has also been made available by the Ministry of Children and Family Affairs and the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO). Efforts will be made to expand the programme’s financial framework and to secure funding from other sources in an effort to achieve the programme’s objectives. 6 2 Fields of research: 2.1 Women’s research in Norway The advent of women’s research in Norway was part of the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It developed through extensive contact with feminist research in the other Nordic countries and internationally. In many disciplines, women’s research was initially supported and inspired by internal trends, including a growing interest in social conditions, historical demography or the forgotten exponents of culture. In the social sciences, the roots of the movement can be traced back to the gender role research of the 1960s. Its association with the women’s political movement has given women’s research a clear, though not always equally explicit, normative position. The desire to improve the situation of women provided much of the impetus for women’s research in the social sciences, gearing it towards politics and reform. A significant share of women’s research in the social sciences has been performed outside the universities and, in cooperation with the authorities, it has also been in a position to influence problems related to policy. While the focus of gender role research was on complementarity between the sexes, men’s domination and women’s subordination were central elements of the new women’s research that evolved in the 1970s, particularly in the social sciences. The interest of gender role research in the importance of socialisation was superseded by the emphasis women’s research placed on the division of labour, sexuality and the gender-specific division of power within the family and society. In the social sciences and humanities alike, the first phase of women’s research revolved around the reconstruction of female experience. The research concentrated partly on scholarly criticism of the male domination in established professional fields, and partly on historicising and contextualising conditions considered to be natural. 7 In history-related subjects, this led to an expansion in the number of potential areas of research, as attention was turned to previously silent groups and silent topics. In legal subjects, attention was devoted to gender-neutral laws which, in actual practice, had proven discriminatory on the basis of gender. A specific body of criticism was developed with a view to reformulating the terms and conditions that applied to traditional legal thought. Women’s research in Norway has been influenced by the research performed in a variety of fields. There has been a great deal of activity in a large number of subjects, at the same time as high priority has been given to interdisciplinary efforts. Discussions among researchers have converged on values and the social consequences of research. Nonetheless, the main focus has been on what has been described as ‘problem-oriented empiricism’, which has provided important empirical results as well as original contributions to the development of concepts and theories. The strong empirical tradition reflected in Norwegian women’s research was one of the reasons NAVF decided, in 1988, to support two programmes for basic women’s research: one in the social sciences and one in the humanities. Another reason was the desire to establish links with the theory debates being conducted in the international arena. The above-mentioned programmes and international trends have further intensified the focus on theory since the late 1980s. While more explicit women’s interests were predominant during the first phase of women’s research, there has been a tendency towards greater differentiation between thematic and theoretical positions in the 1980s and 1990s. Institutional analyses of the welfare state gained momentum as a topic for women’s research in the social sciences in the early 1980s. Labour market research has also moved in the direction of institutional analyses. Research focusing on the body and on sexualised violence has grown into an important field in recent years. In the humanities, there has been a growing interest in cultural understanding and in problems related to subjectivity and identity. Theoretical discussions have largely taken place within the framework of or in contrast to a post-structuralist approach with emphasis on 8 deconstruction. The critique of centuries of dichotomous thinking has also raised questions about the conceptualisation of “women” as a social group. It has been contended that the quest for common female experiences may lead to a reproduction of gender dualisms that oversimplifies the relationship between the sexes and overshadows the differences between women. The confrontation with dichotomous thinking on the question of gender has paved the way for a more complex understanding of the sex-gender system and a greater differentiation in analyses of the division of power. At the same time, the debate has questioned the very foundation of normative women’s research. As a result of this shift, issues related to the formulation of basic theories have assumed vital importance. While the first phase of women’s research revolved around discussions of how to interpret reality, the various scholarly positions have become more important over the past decade. Gender is no longer relevant solely in respect of the choice of research object, but increasingly also in respect of the research process per se and the researcher’s context. Moreover, the focal point of research has shifted towards relations and conflicts between the sexes and on differences between women. However, the early approach to women’s research, in which women are research objects, continues to be an active field. Research on men began to develop in the late 1980s, turning the male gender into a research object. Increasingly, we have seen the contours of theoretical research on gender which focuses attention not primarily on men and women, but on gender as a central principle for social organisation and the production of meaning. There is also increasing interest being shown in approaches that emphasise how gender-related concepts and views are constituted in terms of language. Meanwhile, researchers who previously remained aloof from feminist women’s research are showing more interest in gender research. These new approaches and the debates conducted since the early 1980s have made it possible to identify the contours of various basic positions or paradigms in current Norwegian research on women and gender. This became evident through presentations and discussions at 9 the two conferences organised to mark the conclusion of the basic women’s research programmes in 1994. There is a tendency towards a certain distance and tension between the social sciences and the humanities, not least because the humanities have begun to make more independent theoretical contributions. There are also divergent views among researchers in women’s, men’s and gender studies, particularly as regards politics and the distribution of power. While the original women’s research has been criticised for presenting an oversimplified picture of the relationship between the sexes, thus furthering gender stereotypes, it has been claimed that the current gender research has abandoned interest in power and thus become politically indifferent. Meanwhile, there appears to be agreement that both women and men should be the objects of gender-relevant research, and that gender should be analysed in connection with other forms of sociocultural differentiation. The Programme Committee views the ongoing discussions as an important resource and an expression of the growing scope covered by the field. The new gender research programme will take this broader scope into account and exploit the constructive opportunities inherent in the tensions between various fields of research and theoretical positions. As a result, the concept of gender research will include traditions from women’s research and feminist research as well as impulses from newer areas such as men’s research and culture-based gender research. 2.2 Current challenges In any basic research programme, quality and professional relevance are of the utmost importance in terms of the allocation of research funding. Social relevance is also an important factor. Such relevance may be based on specific political and economic challenges, as well as on the need for ethical reflection, cultural understanding and the dissemination of cultural traditions. 10 The Programme Committee wishes to draw attention to two major challenges facing gender research today. The one involves combining central theoretical problems with various types of empirical studies. The Programme Committee would like to develop further the strong thematic/empirical basis that has characterised Norwegian women’s research thus far. At the same time, the Committee would like to encourage the continuation of the theoretical work that was initiated in the mid-1980s. The second challenge lies in continuing the comprehensive inter- and multidisciplinary cooperation that has characterised gender research. The field would have been inconceivable without such cooperation. To maintain and continue these traditions, the Programme Committee envisions a programme that develops and reinforces the diversity of methodologies represented by the disciplines involved, affording opportunities for the use of experimental as well as traditional methods. The Programme Committee particularly encourages projects that involve social scientists and humanists alike. Priority may also be given to individual subjects, particularly those in which women’s and gender perspectives are not well developed, and in which the challenge may lie in breaking new ground. The growing scope and diversity of gender research will be maintained and continued by the new programme. Generally speaking, the Programme Committee encourages the development of perspectives from which gender is analysed in connection with other social and cultural categories such as class, sexual orientation, ethnicity, region and generation. Further, the Programme Committee will welcome analyses and investigations of social practices and of gender as an ideology and category of meaning. Given the limited funding available for research, the Programme Committee will identify a limited number of target areas that offer special opportunities and/or challenges for new research. Priority will be given to research on new forms of working life and the effect they have on the gender-specific distribution of labour and the relationship between the labour market, family and state. The Committee also 11 encourages projects that focus on the foundation of norms and highlight moral and political dilemmas engendered by the tensions between individual and collective views in modern society. The significance of religion in constituting gender has been notably absent from women’s research, so such projects would be welcomed. Further, the Programme Committee will give priority to research on the body as an interface between biology, past experience and culture. The fifth area of priority will be research on the relationship between sexuality and gender identity that focuses on the cultural exclusion of homosexuality. Finally, priority will be given to new contributions to feminist critique of the disciplines. 12 3 Research priorities The research topics to which the Programme Committee will grant priority are described on the following pages. Importance has been attached to ensuring a certain concentration of the activities performed under the auspices of the research programme. Emphasis has also been given to defining these research topics in a way which is open enough to embrace many fields and researchers, and which can encompass a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. 3.1 New forms of working life Working life plays an important role in constituting social hierarchies, as well as individual and collective identities. Concepts of gender also constitute an integral part of the institutions of working life through the development of explicit norms and implicit premises. The establishment of new forms of working life has a determining effect on women and men alike, as well as on the attitudes towards gender commonly held by society. Working life is currently in a profound state of flux. Norms that have governed working life in Norway thus far are being challenged by new technologies as well as by the increasing globalisation of the economy. Demands for flexibility are on the rise, leading to a steady stream of changes in responsibilities, technologies, expertise, organisation, working hours and the workplace. Employees face tougher new demands in terms of learning, motivation and participation. At the same time, the demarcation between work and leisure is growing less distinct. Working life is becoming a ‘greedy institution’, posing heavier demands on ever larger groups of people. The fact that working conditions offer more opportunities for developing one’s own potential, while offering less job security, may lead to greater social differences. The labour market of tomorrow may be harder to enter and easier to leave. 13 There is a need for research that focuses on how the development of new forms of working life will affect the significance and representations of gender. Historical investigations indicate that a gender-specific division of labour is a process closely related to other social changes. The division of labour was not static prior to the industrial revolution either, but the pace of change increased considerably during the transition to a dynamic market economy. This process has resulted in greater equality, but it has also engendered distinct new patterns of opportunities and limitations for women and men. Although the changes are taking place more rapidly and across a broader scale today, the process itself is not necessarily unique. Accordingly, historical and cross-cultural investigations may be able to provide vital insights that will be relevant to understanding the significance of new forms of working life. The Programme Committee welcomes projects that address the consequences of new forms of working life across a broad scale. Does today’s working life create new domains for gender-neutral interaction and non-hierarchical gender differences, or does the same old gender hierarchy appear once again in a new guise? There is a need, for example, to determine whether new corporate structural and cultural conditions have an impact on the recruitment of female managers. There is also a need for research that focuses on new factors that affect the interaction between working life, family life and leisure. This is the case when family life and leisure are invaded by work activities that call for continuous attention, and when working life has to fill needs previously filled by other institutions. The traditional breadwinner role has been superseded by either the two-income family, the female single provider or government support. The Programme Committee is interested in projects that can shed light on the effects of this phenomenon on the division of power between the sexes and on men’s and women’s identities. The Committee also encourages projects that analyse the challenges posed by the increasing internationalisation of the economy. Such a trend has consequences for legislation and collective bargaining, and for equal 14 rights in working life in general and the living and working situations of women in developing countries in particular. 3.2 Individual rights and institutional norms Women’s position in society has undergone major changes during the gradual transition from family-based to individual-based rights. However, women’s entitlement to political, social and financial rights is not yet universally accepted, and there are still widely divergent, culture-specific views about the limitations that apply to women’s status as individuals. Nonetheless, the process of individualisation has had a powerful impact on the understanding of women’s experiences in the western world. This trend is also generating a new interest in understanding and creating a form of masculinity without domination. Established systems of norms are breaking down in the face of new practices, and institutionally-based forms of authority are being challenged in a variety of areas. This is taking place in respect of systems of organisation and negotiation, in state and municipal government, in politics, in media corporations and literary institutions, as well as in educational institutions, local communities and within the family itself. The changes raise questions about new dimensions in the understanding of gendered power and the complementarity between the sexes, about the existence and meaning of ‘gender’, ‘individual’, and ‘autonomy’, and about how collective norms and norms of solidarity are created and justified. Women’s research in history, the social sciences and the law has made vital contributions to understanding how individual-based rights and responsibilities, combined with sets of norms and practices devised by a welfare state, affect the living conditions of different generations of women. Based on political philosophy, women’s research has also examined the theoretical foundation underlying the relationship 15 between the individual and various forms of collectivism such as the family and the state. In the same vein, questions of principle have been raised about individual rights presumed to be gender-neutral, eg, in the field of liberal contract theory. The Programme Committee urges the development of projects that can further illuminate and examine the basic norms that determine the interface between the individual and the collective. Obviously, such projects are politically relevant. They may help shed light on dilemmas that are permanently entrenched in existing legal and welfare state practices. Multicultural societies engender further dilemmas. More generally, the Committee encourages projects that examine the consequences of processes of individualisation for the perception of various institutional powers and authorities, and for legal and political norms. Historical, cultural and class-specific patterns should be key factors in such projects. 3.3 Gender, religion and cultural conflicts Religion and faith have played a relatively modest part in genderrelated research in Norway. This may seem strange in the light of the significance of theologies, rituals and religious symbols in constituting gender. Religion is a factor which defines social space, conveying basic concepts about the nature of man and norms for human interaction. At the same time, all major world religions have helped legitimise gender-related subordination. This is why feminists have often defined themselves in opposition to the view of women taken by religion, choosing instead to assume anti-religious positions or to produce feminist critique of theology. On the other hand, women have often been amongst the most devoted supporters of various religions, in part because religious institutions have offered a certain latitude and room for expression that women were otherwise denied in the secular world. 16 The Programme Committee will give priority to projects designed to shed light on the interaction between religion, gender and society during periods of time characterised by changing beliefs and cultural confrontations. The Committee encourages cross-cultural comparisons as well as projects that examine institutional changes in an historical perspective. The gender issue was a salient factor in the schism between the old Norse and Christian religions in the Nordic countries, while secularisation was later an adjunct to western modernisation. In the light of the current rise in religious and cultural diversity, relations between religion, the state and civilian society have been upset, entailing major challenges. There are, for example, obvious dilemmas inherent in the interaction between religion, medicine and the law. These issues are often brought into focus by today’s society, not least in connection with abortion and the circumcision of women. Further, the Programme Committee welcomes projects designed to investigate the interaction between gender and religion as a means through which the nature of humankind and society in general may be understood. A comparison of the various images of god espoused by different religions may contribute to an understanding of the diversity and cultural conflicts in modern, multi-cultural societies. Gender relations and gender metaphors may illuminate the origins of religious scriptures and rituals, their ecclesiastical function and religious substance. On the other hand, religious rituals, writings and scriptural traditions are an important source for understanding how gender identity and gender differences are constituted in a given culture. 3.4 Cultural coding of the body Recent textual and discourse theory has made the body an important subject of research in the humanities and social sciences. The body is viewed as a biological organism, as a reservoir of lived experience and a biocultural information system. Studies of how the body is culturally coded may shed light on how tacit cultural knowledge is manifested. In many cases, focusing on the body may mean taking a critical look at 17 equality. Perhaps equal status for women and men would lead to new health problems, particularly for women. This research does not concern women exclusively, although the female body has probably suffered more from direct and indirect pressure and victimisation. Gender-related research on the cultural coding of the body may also pave the way for a more detailed understanding of masculinity. Moreover, it may help bring out a fundamental knowledge about a culture that modern society has repressed. In a number of areas, gender research may turn out to revolve around discrepancies between explicit and implicit, hidden or unconscious information about gender. Scholarly analyses of occupational and working conditions have borrowed perspectives and theories from approaches which have taken little account of the body and sexuality. In Norway, studies that focus on how concepts of the body, gender and power interact with specific working relationships have been the exception rather than the rule. Yet approaches based on the cultural coding of the body may be of great relevance for an understanding of how relations between the sexes develop and how power is exercised in working life, eg, by management, in the commercial service sector or in the public health sector. The body is increasingly inscribed by different technologies. What was previously considered a stable, basic distinction between nature and culture is changing, as human reproduction is becoming subject to technological control through, eg, contraception, prenatal diagnostics, artificial insemination and fertilisation techniques and opportunities for genetic engineering. Even though the most radical reproduction technologies are still rare and costly, it must be assumed that a ‘consciousness of what is possible’ will strongly influence our understanding of what love is and on the relationship between the sexes and generations, as well as in broader terms, on our view of the relationship between biology and technology, nature and culture. Within this programme, it will therefore be important to promote research that illuminates possible connections between the development of biomedical research and changes in our view of the body as a biological organism. There is a need for research on the 18 linguistic production of the body by the social sciences, biomedical research and technology, as well as in literature and other media. 3.5 Sexuality, gender and ambiguity Gender and sexuality are important bases for individual identity and group affiliation in all social systems. But the concepts of gender and sexuality are not unambiguous categories. The significance of sexual difference has altered in the course of history and varies among different cultures and social groups. In modern societies, it is possible to dissociate sex, sexuality and reproduction in ways that challenge the dominant heterosexual paradigm, thus undermining fundamental, generally accepted attitudes to sex as an obvious, stable way of dividing humankind in two. As a basis for identity, gender is currently becoming more fluid and ambiguous. With a few exceptions, sexuality has nevertheless been a relatively narrowly defined field of research in Norway, with the study of homosexuality, for example, being defined as minority research. The Programme Committee will give priority to research on the production of sexual identity that interrogates the hierarchical relationship between hetero- and homosexuality and the way in which the heterosexual culture makes homosexuality and sexual diversity invisible. Research on marginalised sexual groups might help to shed new light on the relationship between sexuality and gender identity, different identity constructs and identity as a process. There is a need for empirical studies on homosexuality and other sexual subcultures as well as theoretical research that focuses on the sexual and genderdetermined categories in empirical corpi. Many studies of homosexuality take the categories ‘homosexual’ and ‘heterosexual’ for granted. However, it is important to examine the connection and interaction between the construction of homosexuality and the heterosexual system of gender and sexuality. Research on the ambiguities inherent in gender categories and gendered selfrepresentation that transgress the culture’s gender dualism could be 19 vital for an understanding of how dominant gender ideologies are produced and reproduced. There is also a need for studies of the impact that an awareness of HIV/aids has on thinking about gender and sexuality. 3.6 Feminism as critique The origin of women’s research in the general politicisation of women and gender in the early 1970s entailed close ties to the new women’s movement. Women’s research was research in opposition not only to the established disciplines, but to society. ‘Gender blindness’ was the point of departure for a general as well as a specific scientific critique. In the development of the critical perspective in women’s research, analyses of women and gender were integrated into an understanding of the broader social processes of equalisation and democratisation. At the same time, the critique was directed more towards epistemological issues - from a general critique of the ideal of neutrality and objectivity, to a greater emphasis on situated knowledges that takes into account the researcher’s own standpoint and working methods. The critical potential inherent in women’s and gender research lies in the links established between professional expertise and a normative brand of feminism aimed at social change. However, the feminist debate on forms of understanding has also raised questions about the concepts of ‘women’ and ‘men’ as social groups or social collectives. It seems obvious that research based on such categories could serve to cement a stereotyped sexual dualism. This raises the important question of whether it is possible to maintain the intention to contribute to fundamental changes in the relationship between the sexes when feminist critique places the gender categories themselves under scrutiny. Thus far, there have been relatively few original theoretical Norwegian contributions to the feminist critique of the sex-gender system. Although ‘problem-oriented empiricism’ has been a productive approach in Norwegian women’s research, it has not done 20 much to encourage theoretical studies. In particular, much women’s research displays a lack of explicit theoretical reflections about its own normative premises. In order to continue the two women’s research programmes in the social sciences and humanities, the Programme Committee would like to encourage more basic research. Priority will be given to projects that address the research traditions, assumptions and models of Norwegian women’s and gender research, across disciplinary and faculty boundaries. Priority will also be given to projects that focus more directly on basic problems related to Norwegian and international feminist research and theory development. Internationally, feminist scientific theory, ethics and normative political theory are rapidly growing fields that represent important professional challenges. At the same time, they represent debates that have clear political relevance, for instance, with regard to the justification of democratic rights, the relationship between sexual rights and human rights, and the ethical consequences of technological/ecological development. 21 22 4 Organisation, way of working and means 4.1 Project organisation The programme activities will be organised in a way designed to enhance expertise, quality, concentration and contact in women’s and gender research. The programme will provide incentives for closer cooperation between humanists and social scientists and attach emphasis to the interdisciplinary nature of the projects. This field of research is characterised by the fact that there is research expertise outside the university sector. The programme will therefore contribute to cooperation between the universities, colleges and institute sector. Several good women’s research networks have already been established in Norway, not least as a result of the work done by the women’s research centres. The programme will give priority to the further development of networks in the programme’s designated target areas. The programme will support individual projects and large-scale cooperative projects, within and across disciplinary boundaries. In the light of the objective of strengthening contact and concentration, emphasis will be attached to organising part of the programme activities around larger or smaller research groups or umbrella projects. A research group may be limited to one institution, or consist of researchers from different institutions. This requires close professional cooperation on the project in question. The umbrella model is based on a somewhat looser structure in which related, individual projects are linked together into a network. 23 The objective of encouraging research efforts in fields in which there is a particular need for new knowledge will require direct strategic input from the Programme Committee. In this context, it might be possible to support the development of expertise in selected areas. To reinforce the synergistic effects of the programme, the Programme Committee will strive to ensure that research institutions take part in co-financing large-scale projects supported by the programme. Efforts will be made to link up researchers with financing from different sources with research groups working within the programme. The programme will allocate funds on the basis of a model that combines public invitations for projects with projects commissioned by the Programme Committee for strategic reasons. Importance is attached to maintaining contact with the other committees and programmes under the auspices of Culture and Society in order to forge links between projects and to contribute to the integration of women’s and gender research into other subjects and programmes. 4.2 Forms of support A project organisation model such as the one described above calls for the Programme Committee to encourage applications for cooperative projects across traditional disciplinary and professional boundaries, as well as to advocate varied application of the available resources. There is a pressing need for new recruitment and, by the same token, it is important to maintain and further develop the human resources already available in this field of research. 24 The programme makes it possible to use a wide range of grants and support schemes in accordance with the Research Council’s standard schemes, including: project grants for researchers (salaries and operating funds) doctoral fellowships post-doctoral fellowships student fellowships (when directly connected to the programme’s projects) Applications may be submitted for individual projects or for largescale cooperative projects. Support may be granted for seminars, conferences and other activities that contribute to the programme objectives. Applications for such support must be incorporated into project applications. As regards the overall allocation of funds, the Programme Committee will give preference to applications for projects of key importance to the programme’s core areas and profile. 4.3 Internationalisation One of the most notable characteristics of women’s research in general, and one of its strong points, is its international nature. One of the challenges facing Norwegian women’s and gender research will be to establish even stronger links to international research centres. Thus far, many important contributions have been available in the Nordic languages only, limiting the value of this research in more far-reaching international debates. In the light of this, the Programme Committee will give priority to strengthening the international publication of Norwegian women’s and gender research. Within the professional framework of the programme, the Programme Committee will evaluate various forms of support for the international dissemination of information about the programme projects, including 25 translations, the editing of publications that are part of series, and active participation in the establishment of contacts and agreements with publishers and editors of books and professional journals. In addition, the Programme Committee will evaluate a variety of other initiatives aimed at broadening international cooperation and contact. In an effort to stimulate more international contact, the programme has the option of providing grants or fellowships for foreign researchers to work in Norway and for Norwegian researchers to work abroad for limited periods of time. Such support would be based on the assumption that those receiving such support would be part of, or directly related to, the programme projects. 4.4 Communication/publication High priority will be given to communicating and publishing the programme’s activities and results. While this is especially important in respect of publication on the international market, as mentioned above, it also applies to the dissemination of information about the programme to the general public. When allocating funds, the Programme Committee will take into account applicants’ plans for disseminating information about the project’s activities and publishing results. The programme will employ various kinds of publication measures, taking account of the interests of users as well as the researchers in selecting the most appropriate dissemination measures. The Programme Committee would like to use seminars and conferences as goal-oriented measures for producing publications as well as for more general dissemination of programme results. The Programme Committee will continue to work on the programme’s publicity and information profile. 26 4.5 Research manager The Programme Committee will evaluate the need to hire an outside research manager to coordinate and initiate efforts. The strong priority attached to network-generating activities and cooperation with other programmes and divisions, as well as to information activities, will probably call for staffing beyond what is currently available within the administrative services of the Programme Committee and Research Council. 27