We are launching the gender & excellence expert group planned in the work programme 2007 for Science in Society.

The draft mandate for this new group is attached. The group will focus on access to funding only, and in particular the barriers to transparency and accountability of the funding award processes.

We are planning to have 12 experts over 10 months, with a planned workload of 5 one-day meetings (normally in Brussels) and about 15 days home-based work. The Chairperson and Rapporteur will have more input.

We hope to have a fair geographical and gender balance in the group.

Each expert is expected to research and report about more than one country (normally about three, this will be determined at the first meeting).

We are looking for experts with direct experience in funding agencies working methods, expertise in the funding procedures, and ideally with research experience on these subjects.

If you know of any suitable expert who may be interested, please forward.

If you are interested yourself, please send your CV to florence.bouvret@ec.Europa.eu

Ideally, we would like to constitute the team no later than 31 October 2007.

Thank you for your help,

Florence Bouvret

European Commission - DG Research

Unit L4 Scientific Culture and Gender issues Mail address: SDME 7/94 - B-1049 Brussels

Tel: +322 29 53301

Fax: +322 29 93746