The EU project GENDERACTIONplus has brought together 26 organisations from 21 European countries over three years to advance gender equality in the European Research Area (ERA). Representatives of national authorities and research funding organisations have provided capacity building, policy development and strategic advice to support the coordination and mainstreaming of gender equality policies in the ERA.
GENDERACTIONplus will formally end in June, and the final conference Towards new Horizons: Inclusive Gender Equality in FP10 and Beyond will be held on 12 February. In conjunction with the final conference, several site visits will also be made to EU countries, within the framework of the task force (EGET, European Gender Equality Task Force) coordinated by the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg.
For the secretariat, GENDERACTIONplus has meant broad collaboration and increased contacts with national authorities and researchers in the EU. The secretariat has coordinated policy development on gender-based violence and sexual harassment. This has included compiling research and analysing the prevention activities of research funding organisations in EU member states.
'Our work has resulted in knowledge on how research on prevention of gender-based violence can be translated into concrete practice at the level of higher education institutions. This is an important contribution to creating safe working conditions for researchers and teachers,' says Fredrik Bondestam, Director of the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg.
The Secretariat has produced several reports and policy briefs, focusing on the implementation of policies against gender-based violence in ERA. In line with other projects the Secretariat has been involved in, UniSAFE and GenderSAFE, the work has also resulted in an ERA-wide policy on gender-based violence, with proposals for targeted prevention measures: Zero-tolerance code of conduct - Publications Office of the EU
'The policy is an important outcome of our contribution in Gender Action Plus. The collaboration between several different member states and international researchers has resulted in advancing the positions for the implementation of policies to counteract gender-based violence in the ERA,’ says Fredrik Bondestam.
