Changes in Funding and the Intensification of Gender Inequalities in Research and Innovation

The chapter examines the effects of changes in research and innovation (R&I) funding on gendered practices (Korvajärvi, 2012), gender (in)equalities and the formation of women's career paths in R&I. The context is Finland, where R&I and its funding expanded in the 1990s and 2000s and then declined significantly between 2008/09 and 2015. Drawing on Dorothy Smith's (2005) institutional ethnography, the chapter analyzes the career histories of Finnish women (N=30) working in research in and outside of academia, in the multidisciplinary field of health technology. Most of the interviewees had lived through both the expansion period and the cuts that emerged in R&I funding in the post-2000s. Many had found opportunities for research work during the period of plentiful funding and had started successful research careers, and then faced the hardening competition of declining resources with experiences of gender inequality and even direct gender discrimination. Gendered (male/female dominated or mixed gender) work communities shaped these inequalities and especially for women researchers with a 'reproductive body' (Pecis, 2016) who were treated unequally and even excluded. We argue that significant changes in R&I funding intensify gender inequalities and affect the career paths of women in R&I.