Powell, A; Hassan, T; Dainty, A and Carter, C (2008) The under-representation of women in European construction research. In: Dainty, A (ed.) Proceedings of 24th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2008, Cardiff, UK.
Abstract
The construction sector plays an important role in economic growth, yet has a poor performance record in research and innovation. At the same time, the construction sector remains male-dominated and women’s growing role as decision-makers and buyers is not reflected by their input into construction innovation and creativity. The WOMEN-CORE project (co-funded by the European Commission’s Research Directorate General under the Sixth EU Framework Programme) was established against this background to address the under-representation of women working in construction research. Given the nature of both the construction sector and scientific research cultures, examined elsewhere, construction research appears to represent a 'double hurdle' for women seeking a career in this field. This paper presents initial findings from the WOMEN-CORE project, with a focus on exploiting existing sources of data to establish the extent of women’s participation in construction research. Specifically, it investigates women’s participation in construction education, construction research employment, construction publications and citations, construction patents and EU funded construction research projects. Key datasets in this analysis include: the Community Labour Force survey, the Education database; the EC CORDIS project database, the European Patent Office database and the ISI Web of Knowledge. The paper also has a particular emphasis on comparing the UK with Europe and concludes that women in the UK are, on average, participating less in construction research than women in Europe.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction research; Europe; gender; women |
| Index terms: | construction sector, publication, career, database, dataset, labour force, creativity, survey, women, programme, construction education, construction innovation, construction patents, Europe, employment, economic growth |
| Subjects: | economic development, project controls, management, professional development, professional education, data management, building construction, intellectual property, sociology, data collection methods, physical geography and landforms, research dissemination and communication, economics, industry analysis, innovation and creative processes |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Human Resources, Education, Research Practice, Legal Issues, Sustainability, Design Practice, Engineering Principles, Time Control, Supply Chain Management, Information Management, Geographical Context |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here