Men and Male as the Norm? A Gender Perspective on Innovation Policies in Denmark, Finland and Sweden Men and Male as the Norm? – A Gender Perspective on Innovation Policies in Denmark, Finland and Sweden Katarina Pettersson Nordic Research Programme 2005-2008. Report:4 ISSN 1654-2290 Nordregio P.O. Box 1658 SE-111 86 Stockholm, Sweden [email protected] www.nordregio.se www.norden.org Nordic co-operation takes place among the countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, as well as the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland. The Nordic Council is a forum for co-operation between the Nordic parliaments and governments. The Council consists of 87 parliamentarians form the Nordic countries. The Nordic Council takes policy initiatives and monitors Nordic co-operation. Founded in 1952. The Nordic Council of Ministers is a forum of co-operation between the Nordic governments. The Nordic Council of Ministers implements Nordic co-operation. The prime ministers have the overall responsibility. Its activities are co-ordinated by the Nordic ministers for co-operation, the Nordic Committee for co-operation and portfolio ministers. Founded in 1971. Stockholm, Sweden 2007 Contents 1. Introduction........................................................................................................... 9 Aim .............................................................................................................................. 9 Gender Perspective ..................................................................................................10 Gender Mainstreaming Policy.................................................................................12 Material and Methodology ......................................................................................14 2. A Brief History of Innovation.......................................................................... 17 Changed Perspective on Economic Growth.........................................................17 3. The Lisbon Agenda – More Growth and Jobs and Gender Mainstreaming? ........................................................................................................ 19 Education, Innovation and Competition in Denmark.........................................21 Balancing Ageing through Innovation and Productivity in Finland...................23 More Employed and Improved Business Climate in Sweden .............................25 4. Gender Mainstreaming in National Innovation Policies? .............................. 27 Denmark – Gender-Blind Quest for an Innovative Society................................27 Finland – An Innovation Wonder Focusing few Women in Research ...............32 Sweden – An Innovation Agency using a Gender Perspective ...........................37 5. Men and Male as the Norm in Innovation Policies ........................................ 42 Introduction to the Innovation strategies .............................................................42 No Gender Mainstreaming .....................................................................................43 Representations of a Seemingly Gender Neutral Everyone................................44 Not Everybody is Perfect........................................................................................45 Gendered Actors – Men as Well-Resourced and Women as Lacking.................47 Knowledge as Masculine Knowledge.....................................................................48 Defining Male Dominated Sectors of the Economy as Strong ..........................55 Metaphors from the Masculine Worlds of Sports and War ................................58 6. Many a Little Makes a Mickle – Gender Transforms the Perspective on Innovation..........................................................................................................................60 Conclusions of the Study........................................................................................60 Avoiding Men and Male as the Norm....................................................................62 References................................................................................................................. 65 Appendix Preface The research programme, ‘Internationalisation of regional development policies – Needs and demands in the Nordic countries’ was commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers in the spring of 2005. The aim of this programme is to undertake research on key issues, where it has been identified that new knowledge is needed, and where such knowledge could be seen to benefit the development and implementation of regional development policy in the Nordic countries. The basis for the research programme is its Nordic character. Research should lead to new knowledge both for the academic world and for the world of policy and practice. Projects should add ‘Nordic value’, i.e. they should produce knowledge of relevance for several regions and countries across Norden. The research should moreover be comparative and collaborative across at least three Nordic countries or self-governed areas. Three themes of high priority for the research programme have been identified; ‘regional governance’, ‘innovation and regional growth’, and ‘demography and labour migration’. In addition to these priorities two additional crosscutting themes were also defined; ‘the enlargement of the EU and the challenges for Nordic regional development policies’ and the broad topic of ‘the three dimensions of sustainable regional development’; i.e. social, economic and environmental sustainability. The research programme has been launched in two rounds. In the first round during the spring of 2005 it was decided to fund five projects. These will be reported during the spring and summer of 2007. In the second round during the spring of 2007 it has been decided that a further five projects will be funded. These will be reported in 2009. All project reports are published in this publication series dedicated to this programme. At the end of the programme, a synthesising report will also be produced where the most important findings are discussed. Nordregio wishes to thank the Nordic Senior Official Committee for Regional Policy and the Nordic Council of Ministers for providing this unique opportunity to develop new research-based knowledge and for encouraging cooperation and the exchange of ideas between Nordic researchers. Nordregio would furthermore like to thank all of the involved research teams and the programme’s Steering Committee for their continuing contributions to the Nordic discourse on regional development. Ole Damsgaard Margareta Dahlström Director Coordinator of the research programme Author’s Preface The field of innovation policies caught my interest around five years ago when I was involved in writing a report for the then rather newly established Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (Vinnova) together with Daniel Hallencreutz and Per Lundequist. In that report we argued the importance of considering gender issues in the context of innovation. We also took the first steps to including a gender perspective when dealing with innovation policies. Doing research on gender in the context of entrepreneurship in the course of writing my PhD dissertation made me realise that talk on innovation and economic development in society seemed to be “gender blind”. This blindness was expressed through representations of economic activities – including work, entrepreneurship and education – as gender neutral, even though these activities and the people performing them to a large extent can be described by their gendered character. Men and sectors of the economy where men work were that way put forward when gender was not analysed, implying and creating a male norm. Since then, the striking injustice in this practice and the intriguing research question for me has been: How and why are women and their economic activities most often subordinated in economic development policies? A grant from Nordregio’s research programme, Internationalisation of regional development policies – needs and demands in the Nordic countries, made it possible for me to spend approximately six months digging into the innovation policies of Denmark, Finland and Sweden, deepening my understanding of the gendering of these policies in this study. I would like to thank the steering group for helpful comments and discussions. A special thank you to Margareta Dahlström, Nordregio, for administering the research programme and organising fruitful and pleasant project meetings! To obtain the research grant I had to involve a reference group for the project. This was indeed a great thing to do, since it put me into contact with three helpful and insightful researchers. Thank you so much to Christina Scholten, Sirkku Wallin and Lars Winther for reading drafts of this report, helping me to improve it with their kind advice, eager questions and comments, and even coming to Uppsala to share their thoughts with me! Last, but not least, I want to thank all the people at the Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University for creating the nicest and most supportive possible institutional context for the writing of this study. It is so great to be at a place where a gender perspective, whatever that means, is accepted and used by everybody! A particular thank you goes to those who helped me improve the research application, and to those who helped me at my last seminar, and also to Riitta Mertanen for