GENDERACTIONplus: A new Horizon Europe project to advance gender equality in the European Research Area

Posted: 8 June, 2022

The Higher Education Authority leads on the development of a system for monitoring and evaluating the implementation and impact of gender equality plans as the main instrument to promote inclusive institutional changes in the new ERA.

On 8 – 10 June 2022, a kick-off meeting of the GENDERACTIONplus project will be hosted by the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic. The consortium consisting of 26 organisations operating in 21 European countries will, in line with the new ERA Policy Agenda, focus on five thematic areas, including gender based violence in academia and inclusiveness and intersectionality with other diversity categories and potential grounds for discrimination, such as ethnicity, disability or LGBTQI+.

The overall goal of GENDERACTIONplus is to contribute to advancing gender equality in the European Research Area through capacity building, policy exchange and coordination, as well as the provision of strategic policy advice. Through these activities the project will contribute to supporting GE policy coordination and integration in the new ERA. To organise this work, two Communities of Practice will be created, one consisting of representatives of national authorities and the other of representatives of Research Funding Organisations.

The five thematic areas that the project will address are: 1) intersectionality and inclusiveness; 2) gender-based violence in academia; 3) the gender dimension in R&I; 4) the monitoring of gender equality actions at the MS level in the new ERA, including the development of a monitoring mechanism and indicators; 5) the development of a system for monitoring and evaluating the implementation and impact of gender equality plans (GEPs) as the main instrument to promote inclusive institutional changes in the new ERA.

“It is vital that gender equality continues to be one of the priorities in the new European Research Area. We have seen major advances at the policy level in the EU overall and in some European countries in the recent years but we also know we can do better. Gender based violence and sexual harassment continue to be a major problem, and we need to develop better tools to address intersectionality and diversity. Another important issue is the monitoring and evaluation of gender equality plans, and their impact, since they are now an eligibility criterion for Horizon Europe. This is a great opportunity to advance on all these topics in a great and motivated European consortium,” says project coordinator Marcela Linkova.

The GENDERACTIONplus project builds on the Horizon 2020 project GENDERACTION implemented 2017 to 2021, the work of the Standing Working Group on Gender in Research and Innovation (SWG GRI) and the work of the FORGEN Community of Practice of RFOs developed in ACT project implemented 2018 to 2021.

GENDERACTIONplus project is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101058093.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.