Best Practices in the Study of Gender

Integrating sex- and gender-related aspects into research and innovation content has become an urgent requirement of major science funding bodies as f.e. the European Commission, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the US NIH/Office of Women's Health Research.It was the only right response in reaction to the documented failure of the 'one size fits all' approach in traditional biomedical research practices. Attention to sex differences seems to be taken up by researchers quite well, however integrating a gender analysis has met with difficulties. Of prime importance here is to consider gender as a multidimensional concept, covering gender norms, gender identities and gender relations. A research design should clarify from the outset whether gender norms, identities or relations are of relevance to the research question at hand. This chapter provides an overview of international policies insisting on integrating a sex, gender and intersectional analysis into research and innovation with a focus on the the gender equality policy of the European Union. Next, more in depth, a collection of best practices, to be understood as a coherent set of processes and activities, corresponding to the starting points, theories and evidence of the field concerned of which it can be expected to contribute to the intended results in a particular context is described. Finally some challenges ahead are identified.