Gender Equality Policies as Compliance Artefacts: The Limits of Structural Change in Spanish Universities

Abstract Despite more than three decades of European Union (EU) initiatives promoting gender equality in science and higher education, and the more recent positioning of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) as key instruments of institutional transformation, structural inequalities remain deeply embedded within academic institutions. This article examines the limits of the EU’s structural change agenda in the context of Spanish universities, focusing on the persistent gap between formal policy compliance and substantive organisational transformation. The analysis draws on fifteen semi-structured interviews with academics and institutional actors involved in gender equality policies in higher education and science. The findings show that formally institutionalised gender equality policies often enhance institutional legitimacy while leaving entrenched power relations and epistemic hierarchies largely intact, contributing to processes of gender-washing within university governance. This article contributes to feminist institutionalism by conceptualising compliance artefacts as the organisational function that gender equality policies may acquire under conditions of compliance-oriented governance. The study further highlights that meaningful structural change requires more than regulatory mandates; it depends on adequately resourced equality infrastructures, the integration of gender equality into institutional governance, cultural and epistemic change, robust evaluation mechanisms, and institutional arrangements that value gender expertise and redistribute responsibility for gender equality across the academic system.