1. To explore the gender dynamics of male and female careers in different engineering organisations:
To compare different fields of engineering
To compare academic and industrial settings
To compare private and public organisations
To compare innovative and traditional companies and organisations

2. To explore the effect of organisational cultures on male and female careers in different engineering organisations:
Differential effects of supportive cultures (motivating factors and influences operating within engineering organizations)
Differential effects of negative cultures (influential factors against gender equality within engineering organizations)
Identification of different barriers to developing a successful career for men and women

3. To explore the assessment and measures of excellence in engineering and technology research and the impact on male and female careers:
To compare different arenas of recognizing excellence
To compare actors who assess and evaluate excellence
To compare success rates in research funding and awards
To compare salaries, bonuses and research budgets

4. To identify and evaluate good practice in different organisations
To explore the factors that influence and motivate engineering organizations, in order to design and implement measures of equality
To explore the factors which influence the sustainability of effective equality actions over time

5. To draw recommendations aimed at promoting gender equality, for male and female careers in national and European engineering organizations. That includes academic, public and private organizations, and engineering technology research bodies.

The objectives combine engineering and careers of female engineers, research activities with organizations in which these activities occur. The hypotheses are that the dynamics of gender varies depending on different fields of engineering, different settings (academic and industrial) and private/public organizations. A question is also, if typologies like innovative and traditional can help to understand different gendered career structures.

Organizational cultures further female engineering research careers or the other way round. Positive or negative organizational cultures effect promoting or hindering of research careers for men and women. Nevertheless the hypothesis is that gender is a very prominent social factor in construction of engineering research careers.

This is even more true for the construction of excellence in engineering and technology. Based on research in some European countries arenas and actors in recognizing, assessment and evaluation of excellence are gendered. In the project there will be cross cultural comparison of findings which are investigated mostly by objective data as success rates in research funding and rewards, salaries, bonuses and research budgets.

For identifying and evaluation of good practices in different organizations also factors to influence and motivate engineering organizations for change are investigated. So how to design and implement measures of equality is necessary to look at. To design factors and measures for effective equality actions also the criteria of sustainability are explored.

For Promoting gender equality in engineering research careers in national and European organizations recommendations will be drawn from results which will be different in academic, public and private organizations and engineering research bodies.