WOMEN RESEARCH RESULTS IN ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

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1 WOMEN RESEARCH RESULTS IN ARCHITECRE AND URBANISM Arianna Guardiola-Víllora, Luisa Basset-Salom Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Universitat Politècnica de València (SPAIN) Abstract Each year, since 1989, the National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity (CNEAI), evaluates, assisted by a scientific commission in each one of the eleven fields set, the individual research activity of the Spanish University tenured faculty members who apply for (this is not a compulsory evaluation), in order to encourage teaching staff to improve their research outcomes. In December 2001, a new Organic Law on Universities passed in Spain: the Spanish Universities Act (LOU), being one of its main improvements the creation of the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ANECA), set up as a public trust. Later on, in April 2007, an amendment of this law established a compulsory accreditation by this agency for new teaching staff and for those willing to change their academic status. Since then, the criteria used by ANECA for this accreditation have been the same that those used by the CNEAI. This fact means that the research evaluation results have become a quality index. In this paper, the last CNEAI evaluation results in Architectural and Urbanism fields are analyzed by gender. The purpose is to evaluate, with the Ministry of Education criteria, women architect tenured academic staff research situation. Keywords: Gender studies, research activity, evaluation, productivity, CNEAI, Spain. 1 INTRODUCTION In December 2001, the new Organic Law on Universities, the Spanish Universities Act, introduces in the Spanish university system external quality evaluation criteria and transparent procedures. At the same time, a new independent agency, ANECA (National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation) is created to carry out this external evaluation in each of the following fields: Mathematics and Physics (field 1), Chemistry (field 2), Cellular and Molecular Biology (field 3), Biomedical Sciences (field 4), Life and Earth Sciences (field 5), Engineering and Architecture (field 6), Social, Economical, Political, Behavioural and Educational Sciences (field 7), Economics and Business Sciences (field 8), Law and Jurisprudence (field 9), History and Art (field 10), Philosophy, Philology and Linguistics (field 11). This Agency adopted the same quality criteria established by the CNEAI (National Commission for the Evaluation of Research Activity) in order to evaluate the research activity of the tenured university academic staff. From its creation in 1989 to the present, the CNEAI is in charge of the administration of the Spanish scientific evaluation policy, consisting in a research incentive system which main objective is to increase the scientific production of university professors and CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) researchers, who are civil servants. For each research field, criteria of accomplishment, established by successive Education and Science ministerial orders and CNEAI resolutions, are publicly available. If a tenured university professor with a PhD or CSIC researcher wants his/her personal research career and curricula to be evaluated, he/she must apply for, in the annual call for applications, and submit a six year research period. Then, if the members of the technical committees (one for each field or subfields established) consider that, in accordance with the criteria laid down, the quality of the period evaluated is sufficient, the researcher is awarded a sexenio recognition (six years period, being 6 the maximum in the professional life), resulting in a small increase in remuneration and an important element of prestige and legitimization. The adequacy of this new evaluation model, based mainly on publications, which are the basic and experimental sciences criteria (fields 1, 2 and 3) neglecting a more applied view of research and more technologically oriented careers, has been subject of controversy within the Agencies and the Spanish architecture universities, with a deep lack of scientific activity tradition. This was made evident in September 2004 at the 1 St Research in Architecture and Urbanism Symposium organized by the Proceedings of INTED2012 Conference. 5th-7th March 2012, Valencia, Spain ISBN:

2 Construction Sciences Institute of the Architecture School of Seville. Since then, field 6 criteria had been modified several times with the purpose of taking into account the Architecture and Engineer Schools research reality, being the most noteworthy change its division into three sub-fields: Mechanical and production technologies (sub-field 6.1), communication, computer and electronics engineering (sub-field 6.2) and architecture, civil engineering, construction and urbanism (sub-field 6.3). The percentage of successful evaluations (awarded sexenios related to submitted sexenios) in each of the eleven fields during the period between 1989 and 2007, (Fig.1), shows that, despite these changes, field 6 professors research results are lower than average ones % 87% % awarded SEXENIOS out to submitted ones % 77% 75% 74% 73% 74% 70% 61% 61% 61% avera ge Fig. 1. Successful evaluation percentage in all fields (from 1989 to 2007) Women share in each scientific area is represented in Fig. 2. The proportion of women among tenured university professors is highest in fields 11, 7 and 3 (47%, 44% and 43% respectively) and lowest in field 6, Architecture and Engineering (18%) despite being the one with more members ( tenured university professors). This is the same in nearly all european countries [1], [2], [3]. ( absolute value) % 26% field 1 59% 41% field 2 57% 43% field 3 63% 37% field 4 63% 37% field 5 82% 18% field 6 56% 44% field 7 65% 35% field 8 63% 37% field 9 64% 36% field 10 field 11 47% 53% M Fig. 2. Tenured university professors distribution by gender and fields (M: men, W: women) The aim of this report is to analyze, according to CNEAI evaluation (sexenios awarded), women architect tenured academic research situation in architecture and urbanism areas, in which they mainly develop their research careers, compared with her men counterparts. 2 MATERIALS AND METHODS To establish research success of tenured faculty members, CNEAI reports are used [4], not only because getting a positive evaluation by the CNEAI (sexenio) represents an incentive for excellence in research activity and provides public recognition of good performance, but also because, nowadays, it has become a condition for tenure and progression in the academic career. 5024

3 Last CNEAI data, published in its website, are the 2007 sexenios evaluation results of tenured university professors and CSIC researchers, after the complaining period, being reference date December Focusing in architect tenured academic research situation differences by gender, the CNEAI evaluation results in specific areas of sub-field 6.3 (Architecture and Engineering) related with architecture and urbanism have been analyzed, considering that architects develop their research activity mainly in them, excluding the areas related with civil engineering. The areas considered are: 100, Architectural Composition (CP), 110, Architectural Construction (CT), 300, Architectural Graphic Design (EG), 505, Soil engineering (IT), 605: Architectural Structures (ST), 715, Architectural Projects (PR) and 815, Urbanism (UR). There are 1393 tenured faculty in these areas, representing 2,9% of the total ( tenured faculty) in the 205 areas considered by the CNEAI. All the figures, tables and graphs concern tenured university faculty. According to the University Reform Law (LRU, 1983) in the Spanish public university system there are four different categories of tenured faculty. These categories, from highest to lowest academic rank are: Full Professor, (Catedrático de Universidad), Associated Professor, (Titular de Universidad), Professor of University Colleges, CEU (Catedrático de Escuela Universitaria) and Associated Professor of University Colleges, (Titular de Escuela Universitaria). According to the Spanish law, and had a fully researching and teaching capacity while CEU and had just fully teaching capacity as well as researching capacity only when they had achieved a PhD. CEU and are ranks that tend to disappear because there are not included in the actual law, but there still remain a lot of them. In this study the four categories are included. 3 RESULTS 3.1 CNEAI research evaluation results in field 6: architecture and engineering The ratio sexenios /professor in field 6, for men and women is 1,08, a bit worse than the average value for the whole fields but far away from ratios in fields 2 and 3 (table 1). Attention should also be drawn to the fact that women results are in all the fields lower than men. Table 1 Sexenio/professor ratio in each field sex/prof field 1 field 2 field 3 field 4 field 5 field 6 field 7 field 8 field 9 field 10 field 11 All field W 1,15 2,41 2,59 1,30 1,89 1,08 0,74 0,52 1,12 1,79 1,32 1,26 M 1,89 3,00 3,18 1,73 2,31 1,08 1,22 0,87 1,69 2,20 2,00 1,61 Analyzing subfields from field 6 separately, differences between them are shown up (Fig 3). The first thing worth noting is that the absolute number of sexenios in fields 6.1 and 6.2 is higher than the number of professors in those fields, otherwise absolute number of sexenios in field 6.3 is lower than number of professors, that fact means that sexenios/professor ratio is smaller than 1 On the other hand, the diagram points out that the percentage of women in sub-field 6.3 (14%) and the percentage of women with sexenios achieved (12%) are the lowest values of all the fields. absolute value of professors and "sexenios" % 22% 77% 23% 84% 16% 87% 13% 86% 14% M W 88% 12% M: men W: women sex/prof. field 6.1 field 6.2 field 6.3 W 1,35 1,03 0,42 M 1,26 1,25 0,52 Fig. 3. Absolute number and percentage of professors and sexenios (subfields 6.1, 6.2, 6.3) 5025

4 3.2 CNEAI research evaluation results in architecture and urbanism Results in the 7 selected areas from field 6.3 analyzed by gender can be seen in figure 4, each bar representing the absolute number and percentage of professors and sexenios in each area. absolute value of professors and "sexenios" % 78% 85% 86% 84% 92% 87% 81% 80% 85% 83% 83% 93% 97% 21% 22% 15% 14% 16% 8% 13% 19% 20% 15% 17% 17% 7% 3% CP CT EG IT ST PR UR CP: Architectural Composition CT: Architectural Construction EG: Architectural Graphic Design IT: Soil engineering ST: Architectural Structures PR: Architectural Projects UR: Urbanism Fig. 4. Absolute number and percentage of professors and sexenios In this graph we can observe that CP and IT are the only two areas that have more sexenios than professors, what means that the ratio will be higher than one sexenio for professor. On the other hand, CP area has the higher percentage of women professors (21%), and those women have achieved the 22% of the total sexenios awarded in this area. On the contrary, UR is the area with lower percentage of women professors (7%) followed by IT with a 13% female share. Sexenios/professor ratios for women and men are written in table 2 being women ratio higher than men s only in CP. The fact that CP is the area with higher percentage of women and has the best women results can be associated with the theoretical nature of the area subjects, being part of its contents related with some areas of the fields 10 and 11 with a 36% and 47% percentage of women respectively. It is worth pointing than EG ratios are the lowest for women and men, being men ratios double than women s. Finally, PR is the only area that have same ratio for women and men. Table 2 Sexenio/professor ratio in each area Ratio sex/prof. CP CT EG IT ST PR UR W 1,57 0,29 0,11 0,60 0,44 0,88 0,47 M 1,50 0,32 0,24 1,44 0,69 0,88 0,73 Having highlighted these really low ratios and considering that Spanish university professors can achieve a maximum of 6 sexenios during their research career, it seems crucial to analyze which percentage of faculty members has been awarded with sexenios. In Fig 5 the percentage (and absolute number) of professors without sexenios are represented in black color for each area, showing that CT and EG percentages reach values higher than 80%. The situation of the other areas is not much better. Nº of professors ( absolute value) % 41% 80% 83% 89% 84% 60% Fig. 5. Absolute number and percentage of professors without sexenios 43% 67% 66% 50% 56% no 68% W M W M W M W M W M W M W M CP CT EG IT ST PR UR 63% 5026

5 As it is not compulsory for professors to apply for a research evaluation, the number and percentage of applicants and of sexenios awarded is represented in Fig. 6. The left bar for each area is the number or percentage of professors who have applied or not for sexenios out of the number of professors, while the right bar for each area is the number or percentage of sexenios awarded or rejected out of the applications. This bars diagram evidences the particularly low proportions of women in all the seven areas and, among them, the low percentages of those who, having applied for a sexenio, had succeeded S: number of professors who did apply for a sexenio (percentage out of number of professors) NS: number of professors who did not apply for a sexenio (percentage out of number of professors) C: number of professors who having applied for a sexenio succeeded (percentage out of applicants) Nº of professors (absolute value) MEN WOMEN Fig. 6. Absolute number and percentage of applicants and of sexenios awarded (C) rejected (NC) Paying attention on CP, CT, EG, ST and PR applicants share, although women percentages are slightly higher than men, percentages of negative evaluations in women are much higher in EG, ST and PR, equal in CT and slightly lower in CP. IT and UR have a higher percentage of men applicants and also higher successful evaluations. This graph highlights the gender imbalance in the evaluation results. It is important to point out that positive evaluations percentage is expected to be equal for both genders regardless of the applying percentage, because, taking account that criteria in every research field are known and a rejected application makes an author ineligible for re-application for the following three years, being compulsory to renounce to part of his/her research performance merits, researchers apply only when they are sure to get a positive evaluation. When the number of professors with 1 to 6 sexenios is analyzed, Fig. 7, apart from showing a higher women applicants percentage and a higher women negative evaluation (NC) as has been highlighted in previous graphs, it is important to emphasize that there is no woman with 6 sexenios, and only one with 5. Average number of sexenios for women is about 2, while for men is about

6 NC rejected sexenios Nº sex number of sexenios achieved CP 81% W applicants 75% M applicants CT 43% W applicants 36% M applicants ST 53% W applicants 51% M applicants EG 30% W applicants 28% M applicants IT 60% W applicants 75% M applicants PR 69% W applicants 59% M applicants UR 63% W applicants 65% M applicants Fig. 7. Absolute number and percentage of professors with 1 to 6 sexenios Next step is to consider the influence of academic rank in evaluation success. The four academic categories distribution [5], [6], [7] in each of the seven studied areas from the gender point of view (Fig. 8) makes evident the under-representation of female in the highest academic rank (only 10 full professors, 1% in CT, EG and ST, 3% in CP), compared with the male representation (245 full professors, 5% in EG, 15% in CT, 21-24% in ST, PR, UR and CP, 32% in IT). The largest category group is, both for men and women. Women: Men: Fig. 8. Academic categories distribution After introducing categories in the research results analysis, the number of sexenios by gender and academic rank in the seven areas are shown in Fig

7 CP Nº of prof.professors CT CEU EG CEU Nºof professors IT CEU ST professors Nº of CEU professors PR UR professors CEU Fig. 9. Number of sexenios by gender and category in the seven areas 5029

8 It would have been logical that and (with fully researching capacity), were the professors with better results, basically, because one of the requirements for tenure is having developed a quality research activity, but this statement seems not to be true, and in some cases, CEU and results are better. One of the main reasons is that professors belonging to academic bodies were required to have at least one sexenio to apply for accreditation as. Fig. 9 expressed clearly the vertical segregation. Although CP is the area with the best women results and smallest male gap, differences are significant. All women in this area has succeeded, and the women percentage of negative evaluation is quite low (7%), but the average number of sexenios recognized to women is between 3 (67%) and 2 (33%) while 17% of men have 3, 4 or 6 sexenios and 8% have 5. women have 2 (43%) or 1 (36%). The woman professor () with most sexenios belongs to this area (5 sexenios). In CT the rejecting women percentage is void, while their male colleague s percentage is quite high (36%) and increases when professor categories decrease. On the other hand, in this area, women have 2 or 3 sexenios, independently of the professor rank. Rejecting percentages in EG area are really high in all the tenured academic bodies and for both genders: women, 67%, men, 14%, and CEU women, 50%, men, 39%, CEU men, 100%, women, 100% and men 71%. In general both genders have few sexenios: only one for,, or CEU women and up to 3 for men. According to Fig.9, we can conclude that IT is a male area: only three women had applied for evaluation, one has been rejected and the other two have 2 and 1 sexenio recognized respectively. On the contrary, men have up to 6 sexenios and rejecting ratio is quite low (about 10%) men have up to 3 sexenios although average is one or two. There are also two CEU with 3 and 4 sexenios respectively. Similar results can been seen in ST with just two women with 1 and 2 sexenios respectively while her men colleagues, although having a high rejecting rate (20%), have achieved until 6 sexenios. rejecting ratios are similar for men and women, having either 1 or 2 sexenios recognized. CEU women have no applied for evaluation and just one woman has applied and has been rejected. CEU and men results are not good, having a rejecting percentage of 80% and 69% respectively. Finally, PR and UR areas have similar results. Without any women in both areas, women have until 3 (PR) or 2 (UR) sexenios and high rejecting rates (27%, PR and 55% UR) 3.3 Excellence research level The analysis of professors research productivity has been carried out considering the proportion of applicants who were awarded sexenios and the number of those six years period reward achieved according to the last CNEAI evaluation data, pointing out differences between the 7 studied areas, professors academic rank, and both genders. As we have already mentioned, the evaluation in research activity is made over non-interrupted periods of six years, and the number of sexenios that can been recognized along the professional career is six, what means 36 years of excellence in research activity. For this reason, appraising a professor research career only considering the number of sexenios awarded is not fair, as it also depends on the researcher age. In order to consider professors age in the evaluation of excellence in research, CNEAI introduces in its last report two indexes: is and ie. is is the proportion of sexenios an individual has achieved out of the sexenios expected because of his/her age. CENAI sets the average age to start the production of published work in 27 years. ie is the proportion of researchers of a group that have all the sexenios they should have. Index is and ie values near 1 are an indicator of excellence in research. The following bars graph (Fig 10) shows is and ie indexes for women and men professors of each academic rank in the seven areas considered, being the is average equal to 0,28. Regarding, best is values are for CP women and men (0,47 and 0,61 respectively), but ie index in this area is only 0,25 for men and 0 for women, which means that only 25% of men has achieved all the sexenios he should considering their age but none women. Similar results are shown for women and men in ST (0,43 and 0,44 respectively) and again, only 24% men has reached the entire number but none women. men results in IT area are not bad (is = 0,57) and the 24% has got the right sexenios number. On the other hand, in CP, ST and PR areas, women is index is higher than men (0,29; 0,22 and 0,33 versus 0,22; 0,15 and 0,13 respectively) while in CT and IT, men and women have the 5030

9 same is index value (0,08 and 0,23 respectively). In all the 7 areas the proportion of sexenios men and women have awarded respect to the number expected (is index) is really low (from 0% to 8%). For CEU professors, the only area where CEU women have a slightly high is index is CT and UR (is index = 0,4 and 0,5 respectively) 25% of construction CEU women have the number of sexenios expected, although UR ie index is null. In both areas no CEU men has got the number of sexenios expected, just IT CEU men has an is index (0,33) nearly double than men average (0,17) and 40% of them have got the number of sexenios that should have been got. is ie W is ie M is W average 0,17 is M average 0,12 Fig. 10. is, ie indexes Finally, if being excellence in research activity means to have been recognized, corresponding to age, every sexenio submitted, 56 women and men can be considered among the research elite (Fig 11). Fig. 11. Research elite This graph shows up that there are only 4 woman considered as researcher of excellence: 1 in ST, PR and CT areas and 1 CEU in CT. In men case, all the areas have at least one excellence researcher, mostly. ST area is the one with the highest number researchers of excellence (26) although this is not strange as ST is the largest area (above 350 as shown in figure 3). is average for the 7 areas is 0,04 (56/1393) 4 CONCLUSIONS In the last decades, stimulated by the research incentive system, Spanish academics had increased their scientific production and their international diffusion, applying to CNEAI for recognition. But, according to CNEAI 2009 report, Engineering and Architecture field shows lower rates of success in comparison with other scientific fields like Mathematics and Physics, Chemistry, etc., being these rates even lower in the specific areas from the subfield 6.3 studied in this article, areas in which the majority of the academic architects develop their research careers. In this work we have focused on gender differences, addressing mainly research performance of the tenured faculty members (sexenios submitted and awarded) in these areas 5031

10 Despite of the increase in the number of women in academia, the percentage of tenured women in these areas still remains very low, showing a strong vertical segregation. Women represent a small fraction at the professor level in these disciplines, being a continuous decline as we move up the academic ladder: the higher the position in the hierarchy, the lower the percentage of women. From the analyzed data, it appears that there is no significant difference in the percentages of sexenios submitted by female and male professors, but there is a serious difference in outcomes: absolute number of sexenios awarded and success ratio (sexenios awarded/sexenios submitted) is significantly higher for men. Men outnumber women also in the sexenios distribution. In this situation, men are more likely to reach the excellence research level and to be present among the research elite than their female counterparts and, consequently, more likely to be promoted to top positions, in the specific areas from the subfield 6.3 studied in this article The system continues to privilege and finally reward men research activity. For that reason, not only major efforts must be made focused in measuring quality of scientific production according to specific fields of knowledge, but also proactive science policies should be taken to avoid the gender bias and to balance out the unequal situation between male and female researchers in the academic sector, still existing nowadays. As an example we can mention a gender-mixed composition of scientific nominating commissions, research funding committees and editorial boards for journals; an increase in the objectivity and transparency of the applied selection criteria and last but not least an increase of women presence in decision-making positions in science. REFERENCES [1] European Commission, Directorate-General for Research (2009). Women in science and technology Creating sustainable careers. Luxembourgo. Available at: [2] European Commission, Directorate-General for Research (2009). She figures, 2009: Statistics and Indicators on Gender Equality in Science. Luxembourg; Available at: [3] United Nations University. Institute of Advanced Studies (2005). Revisiting women s participation in science and technology. Emerging Challenges and Agenda for Reform. Available at: [4] CNEAI (2009). Informe 2009 sobre los resultados de las evaluaciones de la CNEAI [consulta: ]. Available at: memorias-informes.html. [5] Caprile, M.; Vallès, N. (2010) Science as a labour activity. Meta-analysis of gender and science research. Available at: [6] García de León, M.A.; García de Cortázar, M. L. (coord.) (2002). Las académicas (profesorado universitario y género). Madrid, Instituto de la Mujer. [7] Instituto Nacional de Estadística (2011). Estadística para la Enseñanza Universitaria en España, curso : Personal docente de los centros propios de las Universidades Públicas por Área de conocimiento, Sexo y Categoría [consulta: ]. Available at: