The development of the Gender Equality Audit and Monitoring survey

This chapter examines the design process for the Gender Equality Audit and Monitoring (GEAM) survey. Developed by research teams from the United Kingdom (Advance HE) and Spain (Notus and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), the GEAM provides a comprehensive, transferable and transnational survey for higher education and research organisations that wish to undertake an audit of gender equality among academic, technical and support staff. The GEAM was developed from the UK Athena Survey of Science, Engineering and Technology (ASSET) and adapted for use with staff across all higher education and research contexts. The modular survey includes units on working conditions, beliefs and biases, organisational culture and climate and individual behaviours as well as the capture of data about the identity characteristics of respondents. The innovative design process of the GEAM required research teams to reconsider the applicability of gender equality measurement tools across multiple languages and national contexts. This chapter therefore provides an introduction for other researchers engaged in the design of equality, diversity and inclusion surveys; translation of surveys into multiple languages and used across multiple national contexts; and use of a standardised framework to gather evidence of gender inequality across a range of thematic areas.