Conference Agenda

Although promoting gender equality and inclusiveness is a priority of the European Union policies and programs, significant gender inequalities in Research and Innovation (R&I) remain (EC, 2021). In the EU27, women are still under-represented among researchers in the business sector (20.9%), among professors and senior-level staff in academia (26%) and in decision-making positions in higher education (24%). Various global crises, such as global conflicts, pandemics, climate change and anti-feminist movements, have worsened the situation of gender equality for these groups (Bazzul & Siry, 2019; Belser, 2020; Freire & Freire, 2004).

Gender equality is a significant discourse in the European Union and the different national academic systems. However, this concept is highly ambivalent and brings forth both discursive-institutional openings and closures for the identities of female academics (Gill, 2014; Philipps et al., 2022) as agents of change in universities (Wieners & Weber, 2020). Mainly, universities are addressed to implement gender equality measures. These measures are primarily discussed regarding the increase in the number of female academics and lesser in terms of organisational change and learning (cf. also Acker, 1990, 1992).

In this symposium, we address mentoring programmes for female academics and leaders through the overall question of how universities change and learn in and through mentoring programmes. Otherwise asked: How do organisations care for their female researchers and leaders in times of uncertainty marked by multiple crises?

Mentoring can be crucial in addressing the fragile pathways of female students, researchers and leaders within academia (Kaiser-Belz, 2008; Petersen et al., 2017). From an institutional perspective, mentoring programmes are long established in Germany and relatively new in Italy and Spain. At the same time, the mentoring practice in institutionalised mentoring is under-researched regarding the discursive-social mentoring practice and is, therefore, a "black box". Initial empirical findings point to exclusionary practices of 'out-advising' mentoring in relation to gender (Simpson et al., 2023; Wieners, 2022).

We question how organisations change and learn through mentoring programmes in four distinct papers. The first presentation focuses on transformative practices and resistance towards institutional innovation mentoring in Italian universities and research centres. The presentation will analyse mentoring practices in Italy, focusing on innovative approaches and tools as well as resistance to change. The second paper will present findings from an ongoing study on gender and sustainability in Green-Tec study programmes in Germany in light of climate change and how non-traditional students are supported to navigate their studies. In the third presentation, insights from the impact of the Ukrainian war on female leaders are shared, as well as how the HEIs care for their female managers through international cooperation with European partner universities during crisis times. Lastly, the fourth presentation will present a retention study on mentees/ female early career researchers, including deliberations on the pandemic and 'career progress' for mentees from different programs and different types of organisations in Germany.

As such, our panel addresses uncertainty as an external condition and to be situated and positioned in theories of the VUCA world (e.g. Bennett & Lemoine 2014), such as global conflicts, climate change and pandemics, as well as towards rationalities and practices of organising (Weick & Sutcliffe 2001), when addressing the question of how organisations care for uncertainty and change through mentoring practices for female academics and leaders.

The presentation will focus on mentoring experiences in Italian universities and research centres. Notwithstanding, recent studies have confirmed a glass ceiling in Italian academia or segregation processes that negatively affect women’s access to academic and scientific careers; mentoring experiences in Italy are still underdeveloped but present exciting and innovative features. The presentation will analyse mentoring practices in Italy, focusing on innovative approaches and tools as well as resistance to change. In particular, it will focus on mentoring schemes to combat the practices and mechanisms that foster gender inequalities in academia, which adopt the dual approach to mentoring, as Jennifer De Vries (2010) proposed, simultaneously working to support women’s careers and create institutional change. In the last decades, mentoring programs have received criticism as they might not change the masculine model of the ideal academic but rather help women adjust to these norms to be successful (Ely & Meyerson, 2000; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2012). However, transformative mentoring programmes focused on changing the organisation have recently gained more attention. The presentation will, therefore, analyse the impact of the transformative mentoring approach in Italian academia, with particular attention to the gender asymmetries within the framework of the economic crisis and the neoliberal agenda (Archer, 2008; Bagilhole & White, 2013).

Archer, L. (2008). The new neoliberal subjects? Young/er academics’ constructions of professional identity. Journal of Education Policy, 23(3), 265–285. Bagilhole, B. & White, K. (2013). Generation and Gender in Academia. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Ely, R. J. and Meyerson, D. E. (2000). Advancing gender equity in organisations. The challenge and importance of maintaining a gender narrative. Organization, 7(4), 589–608. de Vries, J 2010, A Realistic agenda? Women only programs as strategic interventions for building gender equitable workplaces, University of Western Australia. PhD thesis, University of Western Australia Van den Brink, M. and Benschop, Y. (2012). Slaying the seven-headed dragon. The quest for gender change in academia. Gender, Work & Organization, 19(1), 71–92.

In light of the uncertainty linked to climate change, this presentation provides insights from an ongoing study on gender and sustainability in Green-Tec study programmes in Germany. For this presentation, ‘climate change [is] to be understood as a “thing” that is unbounded, contingent and indeterminate’ (Kirby & Webb 2021, p. 2, original italics). Taking into account space and time, climate change is complex and diffuse, requiring accepting and engaging with uncertainty. In this context, we observe an increased debate on climate change at political and societal levels, for instance, through the Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future movements. In recent years, Greta Thunberg has become a global media 'role model' for young women and a 'newcomer innovator' (Revsbaek, 2014) in the context of political action. As a socially dynamic movement, Fridays for Future movements have discursivised questions of sustainability and future durability, leading to the institutionalisation of the sustainability discourse (Wahlström et al., 2019). This transformation at political and societal levels also leads to re-imagining and re-conceptualising STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) study programs through integrating issues and subjects related to sustainability. So far, non-traditional students who are female students from non-academic or non-technical backgrounds are strongly underrepresented in the Tec sector (Gilardi & Guglielmetti, 2011). Preliminary studies show, however, that GreenTec can serve as a 'door opener' for attracting and retaining female and other represented student groups for STEM study programs and careers (Spangenberger, 2016). From a discourse-analytical perspective (Weber & Wieners, 2018) and using image-based research methodologies and methods (Wieners & Weber, 2021; Wolffram 2022/i.e.), this presentation focuses on the performative organising (Wieners & Weber, 2020a) in higher education practice (Weber & Wieners 2022/i.e.). In particular, the presentation explores the support mechanisms for non-traditional students through website analysis and image-based interviews. It asks to what extent sustainability in Tec studies attracts more female and other non-traditional students and which support mechanisms help them complete their studies and integrate into the labour market. The study finds that- depending on the institutional context and the individual privileges-although sustainability attracts NTS to study GreenTec, support and advice structures offered by the university, such as mentoring, help students to remain and complete the degree, especially in uncertain times. In this sense, ‘moments of uncertainty offer a rupture of la politique, and the possibility of alternative ways of knowing, doing and being‘ (Kirby & Webb, 2021, p. 16).

Gilardi, S. & Guglielmetti, C. (2011). University Life of Non-Traditional Students: Engagement Styles and Impact on Attrition. In: The Journal of Higher Education, 82 (1). S. 33-53. Kirby, P. & Webb, R. (2021). Conceptualising uncertainty and the role of the teacher for the politics of climate change within and beyond the institution of the school, Educational Review, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2021.1933392 Spangenberger, P. (2016). Zum Einfluss eines Nachhaltigkeitsbezugs auf die Wahl technischer Berufe durch Frauen. Eine Analyse am Beispiel des Windenergiesektors. Detmold: Eusl. Weber, S. M. & Wieners, S. (2018). Diskurstheoretische Grundlagen der Organisationspädagogik. In: Göhlich, M.; Schröer, A. & Weber, S. M. (Hrsg.): Handbuch Organisationspädagogik. Wiesbaden: Springer. S. 211-223. Weber, S. M. & Wieners, S. (2022/i.E.). Dispositives of Newness and Change. Academic Organisations` Discursive Practice at the Intersection of Excellence and Gender. In: Angermuller, J. (Hrsg.): Power and Knowledge in Research, Science and Higher Education". Social Studies of Academia. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macimilian. Wolffram, Andrea (2022, i. E.): Gendered Representations of Excellence in Science and Technology. In: Jenkins, Fiona; Hoenig, Barbara; Weber, Susanne; Wolffram, Andrea (Hrsg.): Inequalities and the Paradigm of Excellence in Academia. London and New York: Routledge.

War conflicts (colonial, interstate, civil and internationalised civil ones), a total of 54 in 35 countries as of 2021(Palik et al., 2022), produce refugees and other displaced people (Howard, 2018). About 89.3 million forcibly displaced individuals worldwide, of whom women accounted for approximately 49% (UNHCR, 2022). During Europe's 2015‑17 refugee crisis, women lodged only about 30% of all asylum applications and received 35% of all positive first-instance decisions in the EU‑28 (OECD, 2023). That statistic is similar for higher education: in Germany, the ratio was 78 % male refugee students to 22 % female ones, and the same trends were apparent in the proportions in other countries (EU Commission, 2019). The war in Ukraine increased the share of refugees in the EU to more than 20% (EC, 2024). Germany, Italy, and Spain are among the countries with the highest total numbers of Ukrainian refugees (OECD, 2023). The peculiarity of this refugee flow is that the share of women among adult refugees is around 70% in most host countries, creating unique challenges for integration. Refugee women may suffer from a “triple disadvantage” as the challenges related to gender, immigrant status, and forced migration add up and mutually reinforce each other (Liebig & Tronstad, 2018). Being in a more favourable situation as compared with other refugees due to the possibility of employment in the University and continuing their professional career, female refugee scientists face barriers (Crea, 2016) like language and cultural adjustment, recognition of qualification, work-life balance, legal and administrative hurdles, social support, mental health struggle. Considering the number of female refugee researchers from war zones hosted by European universities (i.a., within the Science4Refugees Initiative of the European Research Council (ERA,2022), mentoring might become an effective instrument of their integration into the European academic and scientific community, making all the stakeholders (Brizuela et al. (2023)) benefit from this development tool (Jones, 2017). Therefore, mentoring for female refugee academic staff is in high demand, though more research is needed. The research question of this presentation is: “What are the peculiarities of mentoring female refugee academic staff in European universities compared with other ones (early and mid-career, science2business, etc.)?”. Through this research, we aim to unveil both prosperous and challenging practices of academic mentoring of female researchers hosted by German, Italian and Spanish universities because of global conflicts.

Crea, T. M. (2016). Refugee higher education: Contextual challenges and implications for program design, delivery, and accompaniment. International Journal of Educational Development, 46(), pp. 12–22. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2015.11.005 European Commission (2024). Statistics on migration to Europe. [URL.: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/statistics-migration-europe_en]. (accessed on 25 January 2024) European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2019). Integrating Asylum Seekers and Refugees into Higher Education in Europe: National Policies and Measures. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. doi:10.2797/548910 [URL.: https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/] (accessed on 25 January 2024) Liebig, T. and K. Tronstad (2018). “Triple Disadvantage?: A first overview of the integration of refugee women”, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 216, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/3f3a9612-en. OECD (2023), “What are the integration challenges of Ukrainian refugee women?”, OECD, Paris, {URL.: https://www.oecd.org/ukraine-hub/policy-responses/what-are-the-integration-challenges-of-ukrainian-refugee-women-bb17dc64/ ] (accessed on 25 January 2024) Palik, Júlia; Anna Marie Obermeier & Siri Aas Rustad (2022) Conflict Trends: A Global Overview, 1946–2021. PRIO Paper. Oslo: PRIO. https://www.prio.org/publications/13178 Howard, R. T. (2018). Migration Wars. The National Interest No. 153, MAKING ASIA GREAT AGAIN?, pp. 53–62 (10 pages) Published By: Center for the National Interest https://www.jstor.org/stable/26557442. UNHCR (2022), Figures at a Glance, [URL: https://www.unhcr.org/figures-at-a-glance.html ] (accessed on 25 January 2024).

The German academic system has witnessed and continues to witness the underrepresentation of women in leading positions. Only 27% of professors are women, despite women constituting more than 50% of students in Germany (Destatis, 2023). The reasons for this disparity have been extensively discussed and are attributed to the symbolic order of academia (Jenkins et al., 2022), organisational and institutional challenges in career advancement (Burger et al., 2016; Schwarz et al., 2018), and the absence of career-promoting networks and mentoring relationships (van Helden et al., 2023; Wieners, 2022). To address these issues, German universities have established mentoring programmes for female academics since the 1990s as a measure of gender equality. Mentoring programmes are intended to initiate career-promoting relationships and networks that were long taken for granted by men but were only sometimes visible. However, careers depend not only on relationships but also on social and organisational uncertainties and inequalities. This paper examines the latter aspects and presents results from a retention study of four mentoring programmes within a German collaborative project. The four programmes focus on transitions from university to career, from doctoral studies to industry or academia, and from the late postdoc phase to professorships. The paper presents the first results of a survey of the effectiveness of these long-established mentoring programmes in influencing the career development of women. The focus of this study is (1) retention and job satisfaction and (2) an intersectional perspective on gender (Walgenbach et al., 2012). The study explores the impact of uncertainties, such as those brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, on academic careers and how these uncertainties are structured intersectionally. Initial results from the study on the effectiveness of mentoring relationships will be presented and integrated into research on female academic careers. The article mainly highlights the opportunities for organisational learning and change that mentoring programmes can offer in addressing the broader intersectional challenges faced by women in academia.

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