Supporting the Promotion of Equality in Research and Academia (SUPERA)

The aim of the SUPERA project is to implement 6 fully-fledged Gender Equality Plans (GEPs)  to articulate a structural understanding of gender inequalities, stereotypes and biases in research and academia. These GEPs will be developed and implemented in two different types of organizations: 4 in Research Performing Organizations (among them, CEU), and 2 in Research Funding Organizations

SUPERA holds four principles:

• Cumulativeness. SUPERA will use solutions, tools and instruments that have already been developed under previous FP7 and H2020 projects, such as the GEAR tool, EGERA’s monitoring and evaluation methodology, and the knowledge acquired at GENOVATE, among others.

• Innovation. SUPERA will use transformation design techniques inspired by design thinking and co-creation.

• Inclusiveness. Through the creation and implementation of Gender Equality Hubs and Fab Labs, the whole research and academic community inside each partner organization will be mobilized, including faculty, undergraduate, post-graduate and PhD students, and administrative staff.

• Sustainability. One of SUPERA’s main goals is to facilitate the institutionalization of Gender Equality measures beyond the project’s timeline. For this reason, top management support is paramount to the success of the project.

Phases of the SUPERA project

• Planning phase, in which extensive preliminary diagnosis (baseline assessment) of the status of gender equality in the respective partner organizations will be carried out. Gender objectives will be defined, actions and measures will be designed to remedy the identified gaps (design of GEPs) and a timeline will be agreed upon.

•  Implementation phase, in which the effective activities and measures will be implemented.

•  Evaluation phase, in which the progress will be followed up on and assessed.

SUPERA key action areas

SUPERA has three areas of action, and one cross-cutting area:

• Recruitment, selection and career progression support. SUPERA will review the existing recruitment and selection processes and procedures to promote equal opportunities for both sexes, while tackling horizontal and vertical segregation, and lack of family-friendly policies.

• Leadership and decision-making. SUPERA aims at increasing transparency in decision-making processes and budget allocation, tackling problems such as gender imbalances in governing and decision-making bodies, and a lack of female senior role models.
• Integrating gender in research and education content. SUPERA will contribute to showcase how gender-sensitive research improves the quality and relevance of knowledge and innovation, by addressing problems such as the disregard for the gender dimension in research content and the lack of gender-sensitive curricula.
• Gender biases and stereotypes (cross-cutting area). SUPERA will analyze and develop specific measures to fight gender biases and stereotypes in order to create welcoming and respectful working and academic environments free of sexism and sexual harassment.

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 787829. This communication reflects the views only of the CPS and the Research Executive Agency cannot be held responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.