"FESTA is concerned with implementing changes in the working environment of academic researchers, to encourage female researchers to stay and make a career in the academy and to create organizational environments where their competence is valued and fostered. In particular, we address the working environment of researchers in the lower levels of their careers, to make it possible for them to advance to the ranks of highest scientific expertise. The different partner institutions will take actions on some core issues, which have seldom been directly addressed in previous research or implementation, in particular on the level of the daily environment of researchers: formal and informal decision making processes, meeting cultures, PhD supervision, perceptions of excellence in hiring processes and in the work environment, and resistance to equality measures. FESTA partners are geographically diverse and come from universities and research institutions of different sizes and with different histories. The consortium consists of researchers in science and technology, social scientists with a solid background in research on gender in academia, persons with governing and administrative positions on high levels in the institutional hierarchy, and gender equality officers. As gender equality projects are seldom simply transferable from one context to another, FESTA actions will be carefully analyzed in regard to the contextual success and failure factors. FESTA will come out with a variety of measures which research environments in different European contexts can use in addressing core issues in their gender equality work. These will be formulated as toolkits and manuals and disseminated both nationally and on the European level in workshops, conferences and through the different networks of the FESTA partners, in addition to web and paper publishing.Starting date: 1st day of the month after the last signature of the GA parties"