New website will help institutions road-map their journeys to gender equality

Posted on: 30 November 2017

Researchers from the Trinity Centre for Gender Equality and Leadership (TCGEL) and other institutions across Europe have launched a new website to support a Horizon 2020-funded project entitled Systemic Action for Gender Equality (SAGE). The website — www.sage-growingequality.eu — provides tools and resources to support higher education and research institutions taking steps along the path to equality.

Under the framework of the SAGE project and the coordination by TCGEL, Trinity College Dublin is continuing to make transformational interventions to advance gender equality within the institution.

The University is dedicated to creating an institutional culture that values and ensures equal opportunities for all its members. To this end, under the umbrella of the SAGE project, Trinity is implementing a Gender Equality Action Plan in accordance with the Higher Education Authorities (HEA) guidelines.

Universities have a fundamental role in addressing barriers to equality by ensuring that the recruitment of the best talent and that the achievement of research excellence coexist with social awareness and responsibility.

Through the design and implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs), the SAGE consortium is developing a proven model for gender equality for extension across EU higher education institutions and beyond. Some of the benefits of GEPs include:

• Creating better work environments which contribute to the well-being, motivation, and effectiveness of its member, thus retaining and attracting the best talent
• Tackling bias and unwritten rules of policies and procedures ensuring more transparent and non-discriminatory mechanisms, which also ensures hiring the best candidates
• Improving the competitiveness of universities by incorporating a gender dimension into research programmes leading to more evidence-based and robust research
• Building diversity in research teams contributing to their creativity and innovation, and therefore improving quality and capacity
• Providing positive impacts, not only in research and innovation, but ultimately society as a whole by tackling the challenges faced by the diversity of its populations

SAGE partners are: Trinity Centre for Gender Equality and Leadership (TCGEL), Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, acting as coordinator; Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy; Gender and Women's Studies Center, Kadir Has University, Turkey; Instituto Universitário De Lisboa, Portugal; Sciences Po Bordeaux, France; International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Queen’s University Belfast, UK, acting as evaluator.