Gender researchers in Umeå to establish international research centre
NEWS
Gender researchers at Umeå University are venturing to form an internationally attractive research centre. Professor Gabriele Griffin, internationally respected within gender research, will visit Umeå on 7 November.
Gender researchers at Umeå University and the research programme titled “Challenging Gender” were named as a Centre of Gender Excellence by the Swedish Research Council last year. “It was an international acknowledgement that our research is of high class since the panel of judges consisted of international experts. We will now go a step further and develop the international element even more so that we can be a research centre that attracts researchers from all over the world,” said Britta Lundgren, dean of the Faculty of Arts and research leader for Challenging Gender.
The work is long-term based and includes, for example, new publishing strategies, benchmarking and strategic investments with help from an international reference group. On 7 November, a thematic day on publishing strategies will be held with an appearance by Professor Gabriele Griffin from the University of York, England. Griffin is co-editor of the highly-ranked international interdisciplinary journal Feminist Theory and a key person within gender research work in the EU’s 7th framework programme.
In addition to Gabrielle Griffin, there will be appearances by three individuals from the programme’s international reference group. They include Professor Johanna Niemi, (University of Helsinki, Finland), Professor Philomena Essed (Antioch University, USA), and Professor Ellen Annandale (University of Leicester, UK). Ellen Annandale is also editor of the journal Social Science & Medicine. “This is one of several strategic phases in our internationalisation work and we have recently arranged an international conference around research on violence, “Gendering Policies on Violence against Women”, said Britta Lundgren.
“We also will have significant contributions in upcoming international conferences; the most upcoming is the global conference Women’s World in Madrid in July, 2008”, continued Britta Lundgren. “We are also investing in an international guest researcher programme and making strategic use of the outstanding international infrastructure for gender research that we have in Umeå.”
