Gender mainstreaming and innovation in public services

The project aims to contribute to further development of gender mainstreaming in public sector organisations. In our previous research on gender mainstreaming in local governments, we have seen examples of innovation and development of public service. Innovation can occur as a consequence of that a gender perspective is integrated. One example is the development of new techniques in civil protection, another is new ways to work with snow removal or new ways of thinking about bus stops in local traffic. One difficulty for innovation is how to sustain a gender

perspective and how links between improvements in local services can be understood from a structural perspective, i.e. how gender equality is related to structural problems of gender equality. Main research questions are how gender mainstreaming is organized for steering, learning and development? How can problems and solutions be understood in relation to national gender equality policy objectives? What affects the possibility to deal with structural gender inequality and how can the organisation of gender mainstreaming develop so to strengthen innovation in public sector? The empirical material consists of a number of municipalities that works

with models and processes for gender mainstreaming and who wants to participate and develop their work.