The HEA has awarded funding of €782,755 under the Gender Equality Enhancement Fund to advance gender equality initiatives in Irish higher education. Awards were made across three areas:
- research on or advancing gender equality initiatives in Ireland.
- training programmes specifically addressing gender equality.
- Athena SWAN capacity-building activities.
Projects were funded across several areas including the promotion of female role models in the physical sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (pSTEM), development and implementation of gender identity, expression and diversity training for staff in Irish HEIs, establishment of networks to support female participation in computer science, resources to support the academic advancement of mid-career female staff, provision of gender equality-based leadership training to future leaders, development of resources to assist departments in modelling gender-disaggregated data against national trends, embedding equality, diversity and inclusion into the curriculum, teaching and learning and teacher education, an investigation of how gender stereotypes contribute to gender inequality, support for the increased visibility and participation of women economists in public discourse, research into the impact of menopause on the careers of women in Irish higher education, addressing the Gender Pay Gap, investigating the gender dimension in computing research, engaging men in building gender equality, exploration of the systemic factors at post-primary and higher education level that contribute to gender representation in Language Studies, analysis of the nature of change and transformation with respect to gender equality, inclusion, and diversity across higher education, and an open and free of charge Equality Charter Symposium.
| HEI partners* | Project title | Year of award |
| DCU, DkIT and University of Galway. | Mid-Career Development Programme for Women | 2020 |
| IADT, GMIT and MU. | Irish Network for Gender Equality in Computing (INGENIC): The Collective Voice for Gender Equality in Computing | 2020 |
| Carlow College, IT Carlow, LIT, MIC and WIT. | The development and implementation of a Gender Identity, Expression & Diversity Training Programme for staff in Irish HEIs | 2020 |
| DCU, University of Galway, UCC, UCD and UL. | Supporting Athena SWAN in the Mathematical Sciences: Benchmarking and Networking | 2020 |
| RCSI, TU Dublin and UCC. | LIBRA – Future Proofing Gender Equality in Higher Education Institutions – Experiential Learning in Simulation for Students Leaders | 2020 |
| IT Carlow, MU, TU Dublin and UCD. | TechMate: A best practice toolkit for driving sustainable acceleration towards gender equality in technology disciplines in HEIs. | 2020 |
| IT Sligo, TU Dublin and UCD. | You can be what you can see: pSTEM Role Models | 2020 |
| MU, University of Galway and UL. | Preparing for Academic Advancement (PAA) | 2020 |
| TU Dublin, TCD, UCC, UCD and UL. | Increasing the voice of women economists in the media and public discourse through training and promotion. | 2021 |
| DCU, TU Dublin and UL. | Getting ahead versus getting along: Investigating how gender stereotypes are contributing to gender inequality in HEIs. | 2021 |
| AIT, Carlow College, IT Carlow, LIT, MIC, and WIT. | Embedding Gender Identity, Expression & Diversity Training and Best Practice into Irish HEIs. | 2021 |
| AIT, IT Carlow, LIT, MTU and WIT. | Embedding Equality Diversity & Inclusion in the Curriculum of the new Technological University Sector: EDIT Project. | 2021 |
| DCU, IT Sligo, MIC, MU, and TCD. | Integrating the gender dimension into teaching, learning and educational outreach in initial teacher education. | 2021 |
| IADT, IT Sligo and TU Dublin. | Working Women and the Menopause: a study of the impact of the menopause on careers of a sample of women working in the HEI sector in Ireland. | 2021 |
| DCU, MU, University of Galway, TCD, UCC, and UCD and UL. | Preparing for Academic Advancement (PAA) | 2021 |
| MIC, TCD, University of Galway, and UL. | Edited Academic Publication entitled ‘‘Transforming Gender Equality and Inclusion within Higher Education in Ireland – Contemporary Perspectives’. | 2022 |
| DCU, MTU, MU and UL. | Gender Equality in Language Studies (GELS) | 2022 |
| DkIT, IADT, MIC, MTU, MU, NCI, University of Galway, RCSI, TUS, UCC, UCD and UL. | Engaging men in building gender equality – the development of a pilot programme in Irish HEIs | 2022 |
| MIC, TCD, UCD, University of Galway and UL. | Addressing the Gender Pay Gap in Irish Higher Education | 2022 |
| ATU, DkIT, SETU, TCD and TU Dublin. | INDICATOR: Investigating the Gender Dimension in Computing Research across the Irish HEI sector | 2022 |
| TCD, TU Dublin, University of Galway and UCD. | Equality Charters Symposium Ireland – aiming higher, moving forward together. | 2022 |
*lead applicants are indicated in bold.