SAGE: Systemic Action for Gender Equality

Dedicated to advancing gender equality in academia and research, the System Action for Gender Equality (SAGE) project is helping universities identify and remove barriers to female recruitment, retention, and advancement. Academia and research suffer from a significant gender gap. In fact, men are three times more likely to reach top-level positions, with women only representing 20% of all leadership roles. Furthermore, although 40 % of all researchers in higher education are female, they account for only 31% of corresponding authors in scientific publications. ‘‘Closing this gender gap is fundamental to increasing the competitiveness of the European research sector—and universities must play a key role in accomplishing this,’’ says Eileen Drew, director of Trinity College Dublin’s Centre for Gender Equality and Leadership and coordinator of the EU-funded SAGE project. ‘‘At the heart of the SAGE project is a belief that having more women involved in research increases the number of skilled researchers in our academic institutions. It also adds a different perspective to research programmes, promotes diversity, improves decision making and enhances creativity and innovation.’’