For decades, funding bodies all over Europe promote gender-inclusive research projects, to aim for two main goals. Firstly, increasing the gender awareness of researchers, as well as their various cooperation partners from companies to civil society organisations. This gender awareness comprises background knowledge about diversity sensitivity within heterogeneous teams. Secondly, gender theories and methods inform the whole research and innovation process, from writing the proposal, formulating research questions, to methodology and publishing results.
The technology research project PROTEA (2022-2025) is one of those projects funded to introduce gender as a research dimension to a transdisciplinary team of experts from engineering, physical therapy, orthopaedic technology, and movement sciences. PROTEA’s goal was to optimize the prosthetic design using 3D printing and integrating sensors to monitor pressure distribution of residual limbs to identify potential health problems. Anita Thaler was part of this team, and reports in her talk from the gender-sensitive human-centred technology design approach, focusing on how gender and intersectionality were integrated co-creatively into the actual technology development.
