Chapter 9

As mentioned in chapter 8 a special window was opened for feminist research policy at national level during the years 1997 until 2000. The Swedish government created the conditions for explicit activities concerning the important issue of integrating feminist research within Swedish research funding authorities. In this chapter, I will shortly present some experiences from the work of the Committee for Cooperation¹¹⁷ of eight Swedish research councils commissioned by the Swedish parliament. The specific assignments of the Committee included amplification, support and coordination of the activities among the councils, when it came to interdisciplinary research, feminist research and gender equity. In this presentation I will focus exclusively on the feminist research mission.

Integrating Processes in a Research Political Opportunity

The Swedish Research Bill was, as mentioned in chapter 8, for the time period exceptionally favourable for feminist research, as well as for interdisciplinary research. The 1996-1997 Research Bill and the corresponding Budget Bill of ’97 and ’98 were very clear on the importance of integrating feminist research perspectives into the disciplines and to give feminist research its regular place within the research funding system. The citations below show some content of the opened window. As stated in the Research Bill (1996/97:5, p.55) It is the view of the Government that it is of significant importance to integrate feminist research into established research disciplines and for the ordinary research financing authorities to allocate resources to feminist research. This was followed up in the Budget Bill (1996/97:1, p.147) declaring, Feminist research ought to be integrated into the ordinary research and in the research financing authorities, that is the Research Councils ought to allocate resources also to feminist research. Every research authority is obliged to participate in executing the measures and in meeting the stated goals within its field of responsibility.

Committee for cooperation of eight research councils

Knowledge about relevant and effective strategies for integration of feminist research into research councils was lacking. It was therefore an important mission for the Cooperation Committee to initiate integration processes and simultaneously develop integrative competences. The Committee for Cooperation consisted of the Presidents or the Vice-Presidents and the Scientific Secretaries-General of the following eight research councils;

• the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (FRN)
• the Council for Research in Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR)
• the Medical Research Council (MFR)
• the Natural Science Research Council (NFR)
• the Council for Engineering Sciences (TFR)
• the Council for Social Research (SFR)
• the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) *the Council for Forestry and Agriculture Research (SJFR)

The government appointed an external President for the Cooperation Committee, a professor in feminist researcher. I was appointed, which gave me a favourable understanding of the process from within.

In order to avoid any confusion here, I remind that the situation concerning the Swedish research funding system was changed after the period of the presented initiative. A new authority structure was launched in the beginning of 2001.

The assignment of the Cooperation Committee was utterly clear about separating feminist research and gender equity activities – a separation which was an important prerequisite for the work as feminist research and gender equity, however important, can not be considered as the same thing. Feminist research means development of scientific qualifications within different research areas. Gender equity means equal representation of and obligations and rights for women and men in the internal and external activities of the councils. Although the Cooperation Committee worked both with initiatives concerning feminist research integration and gender equity, I am here focusing the feminist research integration. One of the most important missions of the Cooperation Committee was to initiate integration processes and simultaneously develop integrative competences.

Expert group for integration of feminist research

Less than one year after the start of the Cooperation Committee, an Expert Group for integration of feminist research within the eight councils was launched. The aim of the work in the Expert Group was to foster the development of priority structures and decision structures in order to facilitate the evaluation and support of feminist research within the eight research councils of the Cooperation Committee. The core issues worked upon were the following:

• Identification of various understandings of feminist research and shifting developments of feminist research within the different disciplines the eight councils represented.
• Frameworks and processes of evaluation.
• Alternative research processes.
• The impact of the theoretical and methodological development of feminist research in the mother disciplines i.e. transformations of the mother disciplines.

The members of the Expert Group included representatives from the eight research councils as well as resource persons from three Nordic countries - Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The work proceeded with working meetings in Stockholm, with seminars in Norway and Denmark and finally with a Nordic conference in Stockholm late in September 2000. The result of the work of the Expert Group is presented in the report “The Relevance of Feminist research”. This report can be seen as a kind of manifestation of the status of feminist research and feminist research policy in Sweden and in some Nordic countries in the late 90s and beginning 2000. The report was prohibited to be officially published although all the eight councils acknowledged authorship. I interpret this situation as a sign of felt provocation within the established research councils.¹¹⁸

Some conclusions

The conclusions below may seem self-evident for some. But we have to keep in mind the Committee and Expert Group were working with research councils starting to spell the word “feminist research”. This did not prevent e.g. the Swedish National Space Board starting to signify feminist research.

The Expert Group concluded its work with the following conclusions and recommendations.

It is important to confirm feminist research as a field of scientific qualification. This is not obvious in the presented context, as we easily slip into discussions of gender equity. Although gender equity is essential, we must also put on the agenda that feminist research is constituted by scientific competence.

Feminist research is developing rapidly, nationally as well as internationally.

Feminist research is generating theory and benefit in a variety of contexts.

Feminist research has various focus and theoretical frameworks within different disciplines. Identification of feminist research within the fields represented by the eight research councils has started and is manifested in various ways. Examples are given in the report accordingly to the different disciplines.

In order to integrate feminist research, there is a need for explicit research priorities. The experience confirmed the significance of the Research Bill to be very explicit in making priorities towards feminist research. The point needed to be stressed is the importance of these kinds of research policy signals for transformative work in bodies like research funding authorities.

Feminist research integration is a challenge as such, a challenge to the hegemonic knowledge system.

A double strategy is needed. Both an autonomous body in the research funding system and a concrete and explicit work of integration into the different existing councils are needed.

The conditions for integration are long-term efforts, competence to integrate feminist research and coordination among the research funding authorities.

The Expert group summarized the needs for integration processes, when it came to feminist research. First of all, a dialogue between researchers with adequate competences and the council at issue was seen to be necessary in order to jointly identify research and its relevance. Quite a lot of work has to be invested in this dialogue. To go into a long-term dialogue with the staff in the councils was considered a prerequisite in order to identify the relevance of feminist research in the specific field of the council’s responsibility.

Secondly, an explicit and anchored policy of feminist research integration within the research funding authority was identified highly needed, which brings us back to the importance of policy signals. Finally, a developed and useful qualification of evaluation was recognized as essential. This might seem self-evident, but experiences showed that was (and still is) not the case. The Expert Group explicitly highlighted the importance of having feminist research applications evaluated by feminist research experts in the specific scientific fields.

It was encouraging and fruitful to work in the Expert Group together with colleagues from Denmark and Norway. The exchange of experiences between research councils and other research funding authorities at Nordic as well as at European and international level was recognized as important in order to strengthen the work of integration and transformation.

Aftermath

The research political signals supporting integration of feminist research weakened drastically after the Tham era in the 90s. The institutional strength of the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research¹¹⁹, established as a result of the research bill of Carl Tham, has been important in order to keep up the feminist research political work. The Advisory Committee of Gender Research within the Swedish Research Council was struggling during many years and closed 2013. We still see few if any signs of integration of feminist research, when it comes to technoscience. Some integration initiatives have occurred within Sida SAREC and VINNOVA of the councils mentioned so far.