Welcome

The Ecole Normale Supérieure ENS-PSL, Paris, France is proud to host the Gender Voices Conference on 10-11 July 2025. We are looking forward to two days of critical conversations, learning, sharing and seminars to conclude four years of COST Action. The members of Gender Voices are delighted to be highlighting an innovative and important issue for the European Union and to present the results of its work on the White Paper.

The call for papers will complement and enrich our Final Conference.

Call for papers 

VOICES Final Conference in Paris

July 10-11

Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL

45 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris, France 

Over the last decades, European higher education and research systems have been characterized by deep changes. While doctoral and postdoctoral researchers constitute a fast-growing workforce, their working conditions have become increasingly precarious and their career prospects uncertain. Moreover, their working conditions have become increasingly unstable. They face, among other things, insecure employment conditions (short-term contracts, part-time), low remunerations, long working hours, increasing requirements (mainly mobility), intense academic competition, overwhelming administrative and organizational tasks, and a lack of recognition by research organizations. PhD candidates are still often perceived as “students” instead of full researchers.

Those processes tend to exacerbate and create new forms of gendered inequalities for Young Researchers and Innovators (YRIs), first and foremost women – that have been magnified by the COVID-19 crisis. Those inequalities are also reinforced by disparities within academia linked to other social determinants, such as origin, socioeconomic status, sexuality, or ability. For example, as for the post-doctoral phase, women tend to occupy more precarious positions and they drop out on the way to permanent positions, commonly known as the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon.

However, current institutional Research & Innovation (R&I) policies, including gender equality policies, rarely consider YRIs’ specific challenges. Moreover, implementing efficient and impactful policies that promote sustainable gender equality remains a great challenge throughout R&I institutions.

The main aim of the VOICES conference is to increase visibility of inequalities faced by Young Researchers and Innovators (YRIs) from a gender perspective and to promote a sustainable dialogue between YRIs and stakeholders in the research ecosystem at the systemic level (European & national policy-makers) and the institutional level (senior researchers, academic managers) by creating a community of gender equality practitioners composed of various stakeholders (YRIs, researchers, academic managers, organizations) across Europe and beyond.

The conference will bring together for discussion the presentation of the main results of the VOICES COST Action (CA20137 from 2021 to 2025, see gendervoices.eu for more information) and the research on the same topic. The programme will combine academic presentations, keynote speeches, round tables, workshops and other events. 

The conference will be held at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, 45 rue d'Ulm (see https://www.ens.psl.eu/en/campus-life-paris/housing/ulm). 

The Call for Papers is for academic papers and workshops. 

All submissions will be made through the SciencesConf Platform here : https://voices2025.sciencescall.org/

Abstract Submission

Abstracts must be submitted in English; please note that the working language of the conference is English as well.

300 to 400 words, max. 5 keywords, and the Abstract with authors’ contact details should be submitted by using the online form.

The abstract should include brief statements on previous research in the field, the purpose of your research/work and the methods used. Please also outline your findings and the conclusions that can be drawn from them. 

By default, the call for papers is for academic papers. If you have innovative formats in mind that you would like to propose (workshop, world café, serious game or others), feel free to do so. Use the same form as for academic papers, but in the description specify the format you are proposing and the requirements in terms of duration, material setting and equipment, and number of participants. 

Please indicate which stream you think your work belongs in; if the work is relevant to more than one stream, please indicate your first and second choice. 

Streams 

1. Employment, Career Development & Mobilities

We invite submissions for research and practice-based presentations exploring the experiences, challenges, and opportunities faced by early career researchers (ECRs) in relation to employment, career development, and mobilities. Drawing on feminist approaches to labour, academia, and intersectionality, we recognise that structural inequalities are embedded in the research sector, shaping access, progression, and precarity in gendered, racialised, and classed ways. We also acknowledge that these experiences are shaped by geographical differences, as culture, local and national policies and organisational cultures create varied conditions for ECRs across regions. Recognising these differences is crucial for developing more inclusive and context-sensitive strategies to support ECR.

ECRs frequently navigate precarious employment conditions, including short-term contracts, casualised roles, and competition for long-term career progression in their fields. These working conditions not only affect individual well-being but also have broader implications for the research sector’s ability to sustain innovation and excellence. The impact of these structural conditions is not experienced equally—women, those with caring responsibilities, those who need career breaks, and those from lower-income backgrounds often face heightened barriers to progression. National and institutional policies that mitigate employment precarity are not consistent and can be localised, but they can play a key role in attracting and retaining research talent. Moreover, individual level interventions and support mechanisms for career development are often unhelpful and based on deficit-model approaches, aiming to “fixing the individuals” rather than “fixing the system”. Intersectional perspectives and interventions are rare, despite evidence showing that multidimensionality of social categories of difference (gender, race, ethnicity, disability, class, sexual orientation, carer status, etc.) can create marginalising, disadvantaging and discriminating effects on research careers.

We welcome proposals that address these issues from diverse perspectives, including but not limited to:

• Precarious employment conditions – short-term contracts, casualisation, and limited career progression opportunities for ECRs.

• Mental health and well-being – the effects of insecure employment on researcher well-being and sector sustainability.

• Structural inequalities – how career precarity disproportionately affects women, carers, those needing career breaks, and those from lower-income backgrounds.

• Policy responses – the role of national and institutional policies in mitigating employment precarity and supporting researcher mobility.

• Institutional responses to support women’s careers and mobility, including gender equality plans.

• The impact of academic households on career advancement, precarity and mobility.

• Deficit vs. systemic approaches – the limitations of individualised career development interventions and the need for structural change.

• (Inclusive or exclusive) Mentoring programmes and their impact on intersectional identities.

• Violence, bullying, and harassment in academia – examining the impact of hostile work environments, institutional responses, and protective policies.

• Sexual harassment and gender-based violence – how institutional cultures, power dynamics, and reporting mechanisms influence ECRs’ experiences and career progression.

• Intersectional perspectives – how overlapping social identities shape access to research careers and create barriers to progression.

• Alternative career pathways – transitions beyond academia and the visibility of diverse career trajectories.

• Work-life balance and caregiving responsibilities – the impact of institutional expectations and cultural norms on career development.

• International comparisons – cross-country perspectives on ECR employment conditions and mobility trends.

We encourage submissions from academics, policymakers, and practitioners engaged in supporting ECRs in research and beyond. Contributions may include empirical research, theoretical reflections, policy analysis, and practice-based contributions.

2. Leadership & Decision-Making

The role of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) in the governance of higher education institutions (HEIs) is increasingly being recognized. However, compared to other academic stakeholder groups, their involvement remains relatively underexplored. ECRs contribute significantly to both research and teaching, yet their participation in decision-making processes is often constrained by traditional academic hierarchies. 

In recent decades, various university governance reforms and EU policies have aimed to enhance the inclusive education system, including the inclusion and recognition of ECRs within the academic profession. While aspects such as gender and ethnic diversity have received considerable attention in these reforms, the role of ECRs in governance has not been as widely examined, despite their growing importance in the academic system. This track invites papers that explore the representation of ECRs in governance and decision-making, with a focus on how their inclusion can drive positive change within HEI systems and gender equality at all career levles.

3. Gender as a Research Dimension

The European Research Area has increasingly prioritized the integration of sex and gender analysis (SGA) in research and innovation (R&I), with Horizon Europe requiring explicit consideration of the gender dimension. While initiatives like Gendered Innovations have advanced inclusivity and scientific excellence, implementation remains inconsistent, often lacking expert guidance. This highlights the need for better researcher training to ensure meaningful application across disciplines.

We invite contributions on methods for integrating sex/gender and intersectionality in R&I and pedagogical approaches for teaching gender analysis and gender evaluation. Furthermore we are explicitly interested in strategies and empirical findings for embedding SGA structurally in research governance, and evaluating gender as a dimension in research proposals and projects. Authors are encouraged to engage with intersectionality, aligning with the European Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025.

4. Intersectionality 

The term ‘intersectionality’ is mostly identified with CRT scholar Kimberle Crenshaw (1989) who, along with other scholars, contributed to and advocated thinking critically about the multidimensional aspect of women’s oppression along race, class and gender lines. In recent years, European programmes have sought to move from a gender perspective to an "intersectional" perspective, without really specifying what was expected beyond the defence of European "values" of equality and non-discrimination, against a backdrop of rising far-right ideas that promote national identities that are allegedly under threat, criticise multiculturalism and do not hesitate to promote xenophobia.

We have invited researchers, theorists and evidence-based practitioners to submit discursive papers that engage in issues regarding the development of  intersectional approaches. We are interested in papers that generate new analytical, critical and methodological perspectives.  The following themes are relevant:

• Exploring the combined effects of forms of inequality in across sectors
• The role of curricula and pedagogies in challenging the dominance of whiteness, ableism, masculinity, cis-genderism and other structural inequalities
• The value of broader or narrower notions of intersectionality 
• How insights into intersectionality can effectively tackle the marginalisation of critical and equalising knowledges within different professional contexts 

5. Data Collection, Monitoring & Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a crosscutting theme of the Action Gender VOICES, supporting all content-related working groups by providing evidence on the effectiveness and impact of gender equality interventions in research institutions. This session seeks papers exploring innovative methodologies, tools, and practices in monitoring and evaluation across diverse sectors including academia. The topics including, but not limited to the following topics are welcome. 

• Methodological innovations in M&E,

• M&E in public policy, 

• Data-driven M&E including digital tools,

• Challenges and lessons learned from field experiences, and

• Ethical considerations and inclusivity in evaluation processes.

There is no stream on gender-based violence and institutional culture. Papers have already been submitted to another call.