Sex and gender in grant proposals

It may be relevant to include gender and/or sex in your research project, and it’s important to be aware of the dimension of gender.


Some research funders require applicants to address issues of gender and/or sex in their research projects. Gender equality is one of the cross-cutting principles of the Horizon Europe programme which applicants need to be aware of. This also applies to a number of the grants available from Danish funders, for example the Lundbeck Foundation. 

This requirement has been introduced due to increased focus on the benefits of addressing gender and/or sex in research projects, which include:

  • Increasing the value of research and innovation through excellence, creativity, reproducibility and business opportunities.
  • Contributing to a better/deeper understanding of the needs, behaviour and perspectives of all people.
  • Contributing to rethinking standards and reference models to make them more inclusive and thus more applicable.

Overall, greater awareness of the dimension of gender and/or sex can improve the quality of research and increase its relevance to society. On the other hand, a lack of awareness of the dimension of gender and/or sex in research projects can lead to poorer-quality research or even a waste of research funding. It’s not just a question of equality in the organisation or a project consortium. To a high degree, it’s also a question of designing gender and/or sex into research and innovation from the start.

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Relevant questions for your research

Here is a list of questions that can help inspire you when you’re considering whether and how to address gender and/or sex in your research and/or innovation project.  Each section includes questions related to a specific aspect of a research project.


Questions related to the idea generation phase – development of the research project

  • Does the research project involve people or other living beings? If so, have you considered whether gender/and or sex is relevant to your research topic?
  • Have you reviewed the research literature (and/or other sources) about gender/sex and gender/sex difference within your research area?
  • Are you drawing on research that explores gender and/or sex i relation to your topic?
  • Have you considered whether gender and/or sex might influence people’s approach to your research topic?
  • Have you considered assumptions about gender and/or sex and stereotypes which might affect your research topic?

Questions related to the design of the research project

  • Are your questionnaires, focus groups, observations etc. designed to identify relevant gender and/or sex differences in the research field?
  • If the project involves sampling, are your samples balanced with regard to gender (if 50/50 is not possible, so at least 40/60?)?
  • Will gender and/or sex be one of the variables involved in the the analysis of your data?
  • Will other relevant variables (for example, age or profession) be analysed in relation to gender and/or sex?
  • If the answer to either of these questions is ‘no’, what is the reason for this?

Questions related to the funding application phase

  • Have you considered whether the research results and effects are gender-dependent?
  • Does your chosen method make it possible to detect and investigate potential gender/sex differences?
  • Is the data collected differentiated by gender/sex?
  • Is analysing the data collected from a gender/sex perspective relevant?
  • Does the application describe how issues of gender/sex will be addressed by the project? If gender/sex isn’t relevant, are the reasons for this explained in the application?

Questions related to dissemination and publication

  • Does the dissemination of your results include statistics, tables, figures and descriptions focussing on relevant gender differences?
  • Are you conscious of gender and/or sex in how you phrase things in connection with your dissemination and communication activities?

Note that Danish does not distinguish between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’.

In Danish, the word ‘køn’ refers to both. Native speakers of Danish (and other non-native speakers of English) should make sure they understand the difference between the concepts of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’.

  • Sex refers to biology. In humans, sex refers to the biological attributes that distinguish male, female, and/or intersex. In non-human animals, sex refers to biological attributes that distinguish male, female, and/or hermaphrodite. In engineering & product design research, sex includes anatomical and physiological characteristics that may impact the design of products, systems, and processes.
  • Gender refers to sociocultural norms, identities, and relations that: 1) structure societies and organizations; and 2) shape behaviors, products, technologies, environments, and knowledges (Schiebinger, 1999). Gender attitudes and behaviors are complex and change across time and place. Importantly, gender is multidimensional (Hyde et al., 2018) and intersects with other social categories, such as sex, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

Kilde: Schiebinger, L., Klinge, I., Sánchez de Madariaga, I., Paik, H. Y., Schraudner, M., and Stefanick, M. (Eds.) (2011-2021). Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering and Environment.

Integrating Gender Analysis into Research The video ‘Integrating Gender Analysis into Research’ from the French National Centre for Scientific Research provides examples of situations in which integrating gender issues into research is relevant.
Sex and Gender Interact In this video, Professor Londa Schiebinger of Stanford University explains the difference between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and how these concepts can influence different types of research and innovation projects.

Research in EU research funding, Horizon Europe

Gender equality is one of the cross-cutting principles of the Horizon Europe programme which applicants need to be aware of. It’s not just about equality at institutions and companies or gender balance in the consortium. To an equally high degree, it’s also a question of incorporating gender into research and innovation.

Gender Equality Plan

The European Commission is working in a focused and strategic manner to promote gender equality in research and innovation as part of the EU’s strategy for gender equality for 2020-25. From 2022, all public-sector institutions, including higher education and research institutions that are partners in a Horizon Europe project, must draw up a Gender Equality Plan before they can participate in Horizon Europe projects. AU has drawn up a gender equality plan, the primary focus of which is gender equality in academic positions, because the challenges are particularly clear in this area.

The gender aspect of the research and innovation content in the Excellence section

When applying for Horizon Europe funding, you should be aware that it remembering to integrate the aspect of gender into your research can have a major impact on how your application is evaluated. 

When planning your project and writing your application, you should consider and describe how you intend to work with the aspect of gender in your research or innovation project. Specifically, you should address the gender aspects of your research or innovation project, not equality or gender balance in your project consortium. This should be included in the excellence section of your application, and is mandatory for all applications under the programmes in Pillar II, unless an exception has been explicitly stated in the call for applications. What this means is that the inclusion of the aspect of gender is also one of the criteria on which the applications are evaluated. Read the evaluation criteria in the Horizon Europe Work Programme under Award Criteria on page 21. 

If you apply for other Horizon Europe grants, addressing the aspect of gender in your project is also a good idea.

Gender balance in the project consortium

The gender balance of the consortium is not an evaluation criterion per se. The general rule is that projects should included most qualified researchers in their fields to ensure the highest level of excellence.  However, the gender balance of the consortium may play a role nonetheless. After the evaluators have assigned points and ranked the applications, in some cases two excellent applications will receive the same number of points.  In the event that there is only funding available to support one project, other criteria will be used to evaluate the two finalists to decide which one will receive Horizon Europe support. Gender balance in the consortium is one of these criteria. This means that the gender balance of the consortium may end up playing a role in the evaluation of the application. Read the ranking criteria in the Horizon Europe Work Programme under Procedure, page 26.