Monitoring as a steering tool for gender equality policy in higher education institutions: ideal and reality

In an ideal-typical process of gender equality policy development and implementation, empirical evidence plays a central role. The gender analysis at the beginning of the process describes the gender issue to be addressed. Based on this baseline, objectives and priorities are defined, policies are designed and implemented, and these are then monitored and, ideally, evaluated. The aim of monitoring is to provide information on the implementation of the gender equality measure so that countermeasures, if needed, can be taken at an early stage in the event of deviations from the planned implementation. However, this requires that the monitoring indicators are derived from the policy objectives and are measurable. Practice shows that the availability of data, rather than the objectives, determines the development of indicators. The procedure for developing indicators is described and reflected on using the example of monitoring the implementation of the recommendations of the Austrian Convention of Higher Education Institutions on strengthening gender competencies in higher education processes. The preconditions for the steering function of monitoring and its limitations are discussed.