People, their knowledge and creativity, are most important for the development of the innovation ecosystem. It is therefore necessary to take care of people or human resources and provide them with a motivating work environment. However, one of the problems is that the current culture and organizational set-up of the applicant organizations do not always create an environment that is supporting for equal opportunities for women and men. As a result, this work environment is not yet able to attract and retain enough women in the long term. The reasons for lower involvement of women in research activities must be sought in the conditions for reconciling work and private life (or parenthood), persistent prejudices about women’s abilities, ways of recruiting new employees, conditions for career growth, unequal pay, etc.
Eligibility of the costs of work-life balance
TA CR considers the costs associated with the care of children or other close persons to be eligible if they are reported within indirect costs using:
Bonuses for advanced human resource policy
TA CR welcomes the activities of research organizations and companies aimed at improving working conditions and gender equality, and provides bonuses to these entities in calls for proposals under selected programmes. The aim of the bonus is to reward such activities of applicants who have made progress and to motivate other organizations to pay more attention to the care of human resources and gender equality in their workplaces.
Until 2020, the bonus consisted mainly of increased indirect costs for those project proposals in which the main applicant was an organization with a proven advanced level of care for human resources and gender equality. The level of indirect costs could be set to up to 30% in these cases. Since 2020, we have started using a bonus score. This belongs to the project proposal, which includes at least one partner with a proven advanced level of human resource policy.
Starting from 2020, research organizations and companies can demonstrate an advanced level of care for human resources and gender equality in the following ways: