56% proposal increase for latest SWAFS calls

The 2015 Science with and for Society (SWAFS) calls have attracted 394 research proposals. This represents an increase of 56% compared to the 2014 calls. GENERA, a project intended to help research organisations to develop and implement gender equality plans, is supported by this EU funding scheme.

The aim of GENERA is to help research organisations, including research funding bodies, to develop and implement gender equality plans. According to the European Commission (EC) Director General for Research and Innovation, Robert Jan Smits, GENERA, which is led by Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), has high potential to become a model in demonstrating the wealth of opportunities for women scientists in the field of physics.

Robert-Jan Smits gave a keynote speech at the recent kick-off meeting of the GENERA project. The EC Director General stressed the importance of improving gender awareness in the briefings of the Horizon 2020 evaluators, the experts assessing research proposals competing for EU funds for research.

The highest number of proposals, 207, was submitted to the call dedicated to ‘Making science education and careers attractive for young people’ (SEAC), followed by 110 proposals submitted to ‘Integrating society in science and innovation’ (ISSI). The other two calls, ‘Governance for the advancement of responsible research and innovation’ (GARRI) and ‘Promoting gender equality in research and innovation’ (GERI), shared the remaining 31 and 46 proposals respectively.

Building on the legacy of previous framework programmes, the SWAFS programme is part of Horizon 2020, the current EU framework programme for research and innovation. It aims to ensure engagement between research and society, recruit new talent to science and pair excellence with social awareness and responsibility.