To understand how gender, diversity, or inequality matter in your work, ask yourself a few simple questions (source):

• Biology and the Body: Do physical differences like height, weight, strength, voice, or how people feel pain or temperature play a role? People vary more than you might think – not just based on reproductive organs.
• Who Is Affected?: Where will your findings or product be used, and who will use it? For example, speech recognition systems often struggle with voices that don’t match the “standard” – like those of women, non-binary people, or people with accents – leading to frustration and exclusion.
• Who Benefits?: For whom are the outcomes relevant? For instance, much more research is done on erectile dysfunction (affecting 19% of men) than on premenstrual syndrome (affecting 90% of women) (source).
• Who Is Left Out?: Could your research or product exclude certain groups? For example, heart attack research focused mainly on men, which led to poorer care for women.
• Required Skills: What skills do people need to use your product or service? Think about how their life situations impact use – like parents with strollers or people with hearing impairments using public transport.
• Who Is Left Out?: Could your research or product exclude certain groups? For example, heart attack research focused mainly on men, which led to poorer care for women.
• Stereotypes and Norms: Does your design reinforce stereotypes? For instance, social robots with gendered voices or looks can reflect outdated gender roles.

Consider how your research or product might affect different people. Ask yourself:

• Could any group be impacted differently?
• Do some groups have different needs or expectations?
• Do they relate to the topic in a unique way?

If you're unsure, it's worth looking into. Don’t rely on assumptions or stereotypes. For example, don’t assume older people aren’t interested in technology – instead, ask what can be done to make it work well for everyone. Please also remember that gender is not just binary, there are other categories such as inter* or non-binary.

Keep in Mind: People Have Many Overlapping Identities

Different aspects of diversity often combine. For example, the needs of an older woman using technology or healthcare may be very different from those of a younger woman. It’s important to think about these differences in your project too.

In some projects, gender and other aspects of diversity may not play a major role – for example, in satellite technology. But it’s still important to check carefully using the checklist and do a bit of research.

If you're confident that these issues are not relevant, explain why in your funding application. That way, your reasoning can be reviewed.

However, step 5 and the continuous block of management, monitoring and reflection are still important for you, as there are in all projects:

• Phenomena, products or contexts that need to be named, and
• Reports or publications, and the language is often gendered.

This also affects areas of research, in which you would think that gender and inclusion does not play a role, e.g. astrophysics. For example, in meteorology, in the past, low-pressure systems were given female names and high-pressure systems male names. The system has been changed so that “bad” weather is not exclusively associated with female names (source).

Here you find tools, resources and field specific information for your support

Tools & resources:

• The GERD model helps you to introduce aspects of gender & diversity into the practical development of technology. However, it can also be helpful in other areas beyond technology development.
• The GILL Hub is a collaborative platform and community that provides tools, methods, services, and resources to support gender-responsive smart innovation and entrepreneurship.
• On the Gender.ED website, they help you conduct a Gender Sensitive Research project. There are examples from ICT, Economics and Agriculture.
• On the TU Graz website, there are 18 examples from various scientific fields to illustrate how diversity aspects can be identified and integrated into the research cycle. For example, by introducing new variables, methods, or publication practices.

Webinars & Videos

• Watch the video on integrating gender analysis into research (IGAR) by Londa Schiebinger to learn why it's important to include gender analysis in research.
• The EU-funded project ACT produced short explanatory videos, amongst others on sex and gender analysis.
• The Gender Equality Academy offers a webinar on the gender dimension in research.
• The GILL project provides a video on the topic of “Gender Equality by Design: Gender Responsive Methods”.
• Get inspiration from the various self paced gender trainings by UN Women.

Field specific Information

For health & medicine

• The Gender Equality Academy conducted several training sessions on the integration of the sex/gender dimension into specific research topics, amongst others also into health & medicine. It provides training materials and, for most of the sessions, seminar videos are available.
• In the Gendered Innovations 2 report, there is a full case study on Inclusive Analysis in Health.
• This course by the Canadian Institute of Health Research gives information on “Sex and Gender in Biomedical Research”.
• On the website of Canadian Institute of Health Research, you can find quite detailed information on Sex and Gender in Health Research: How to integrate sex/gender in various health research sub-disciplines and about its impact.
• In this report by Kilden genderresearch.no, there is a case study on health and well-being.

For Information, Communication and Technology (ICT)

• On the Gendered Innovations website, you can find a case study on sex/gender in machine learning and regarding social robots with helpful information on the relevance and research design. Also, there are short explanatory videos on sex/gender in Energy, Humans & Computers, and Robots in our Society from the GEECCO project.
• The Diversifair Project has produced a toolkit on AI & intersectionality for the industry sector.
• Watch the webinar from the ‘Gender equality in information science and technology’ (EQUAL-IST) project to learn why you should include a gender (and intersectional) approach in your research project, and how to do so.
• The Gender Equality Academy conducted several training sessions on the integration of the sex/gender dimension into specific research topics, amongst others also into ICT. It provides training materials and, for most of the sessions, seminar videos are available.
• In the Gendered Innovations 2 report, there is a full case study on Inclusive Analysis in ICT (AI, machine learning, robotics).
• The workshop by the GILL project gives insight into the Gendered design of ICT Tools.

For Engineering, Architecture and City-Planning

• On the Gendered Innovations website, you can find short explanatory videos on sex/gender in Mobility and Engineering e.g. Design.
• In the Gendered Innovations 2 report, there are full case studies on Climate change, energy and agriculture, as well as Urban planning and transport.
• In this report by Kilden genderresearch.no, there are case studies on energy, transport, environment and climate, and safe societies.

• Step 1: Idea & Initiation – Get Started!

  Think about the relevance of gender and inclusion in your project. Do some research to identify relevant knowledge about gender and other diversity dimensions in your project field (see above) and describe the status quo in your project proposal. Integrate relevant asepcts of inclusion in your project aims (and research questions).

• Step 2: Analysis – Get to know your target group

  Describe in your plan, which methods you use to identify user needs. Also explain what you need to consider in terms of inclusiveness when designing data collection instruments. Describe how you reach and involve your target groups and how you are going to carry out inclusive data analysis. Look for support in Step 2.

• Step 3: Concept – Generating ideas for Further Development

  Plan how to develop potential solutions and how to involve diverse users in the process to do it inclusively. Also describe how you decide which solution to implement. Look for support in Step 3.

• Step 4: Implementation – Execute and Test your Concept

  Describe how you are going to develop a prototype/product/technology/project outcome and what to consider to do it inclusively. Also plan how to test and further develop developed solutions with diverse users. Look for support in Step 4.

• Step 5: Dissemination & Sustainability - Sharing and Sustaining Results

  Describe how you will disseminate your findings and results in an inclusive way and which target groups you want to reach. Also think about how you can ensure that your findings are used in other projects and other parts of your organisation. Look for support in Step 5.

• Continous: Management, Monitoring, Evaluation & Reflection

  Describe what needs to be considered throughout the project cycle. Plan to monitor and reflect on a gender and inclusion throughout the whole project. Look for support in Step 6.