Gender perspectives in European research

BackgroundAttention to sex and gender aspects in biomedical and health-related research has been a major initiative of the EU gender equality policy for research. The EU funded GenderBasic project (2005–2008), conceived to stimulate this attention to sex and gender and to provide practical tools to researchers, resulted in the publication of 10 reviews by high-level scientists in a Supplement to Gender Medicine in December 2007: “Bringing Gender Expertise to Biomedical and Health-Related Research”.MethodsFour commissioned reviews covered methodological aspects of addressing sex and gender in biomedical research – ranging from basic, molecular to public health research – next to six reviews that addressed sex and gender aspects relevant to selected health areas: anxiety disorders, asthma, metabolic syndrome, nutrigenomics, osteoporosis and work-related health.ResultsThe review articles, that were discussed at an expert meeting, attended – upon invitation – by a mixed audience of basic and clinical researchers, epidemiologists, social scientists and gender researchers, came up with excellent state of the art data, solutions to methodological and conceptual problems, practical tools and interesting questions for further research.ConclusionThe expert meeting created great enthusiasm among the participants and a real exchange took place among researchers from various backgrounds. Most life sciences researchers were familiar with the concept of sex differences but confessed that the effects of socially constructed gender until now, had received too little attention.The GenderBasic project yielded three major achievements for European research: (1) it stimulated and promoted research into sex differences; (2) it stimulated research into the workings of gender, illustrated by useful examples in particular in understanding masculinity and its effects on the health of individual men; (3) it highlighted sex-gender interaction and granted gender a prominent place on the research agenda that resulted from GenderBasic. A final conclusion of the project was that it is not differences per se that are interesting but rather how, as a result of the interaction between sex and gender, differences develop.The European Commission selected the GenderBasic project itself as an excellent example of the positive impacts EU research can achieve and the project will be featured in a catalogue of 6th Framework Success Stories.