EQUALS-EU: Europe’s Regional Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age

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EQUALS-EU: Europe’s Regional Partnership for Gender Equality in the Digital Age

LECTURER, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Executive Director of the Gender Centre

Timeline: January 1st, 2021-December 31st, 2023
Funding institution: European Commission, Programme Horizon 2020, Science with and for Society (SwafS 2018-2020)

Background

The information society presents new possibilities for generating and distributing wealth and knowledge. Active participation of women in the information society is a matter of justice and equality. Digital inclusion provides new pathways and novel solutions for ensuring that women and girls can participate in the entire sphere of economic, social, political and cultural life. However, innovations are often disproportionately driven by and benefit men.

Fostering gender inclusive innovation ecosystems can help cultivate a new generation of women inventors and address the economic, social and cultural roots of gender inequality that affect women’s lives from childhood to adulthood, in education, employment and social life. This requires strong inter-sectoral and multidisciplinary networks that bring together diverse stakeholders to build capacity, forge new networks, and help reshape the information society. It can engage women and girls in innovation through participatory methods and open and inclusive practices and produce safer, more secure and more sustainable information and communications technology (ICT) that is available, accessible, affordable, and usable for everyone.

Objectives

Develop hands on activities in the form of interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, innovation camps and hackathons6 focused on digital inclusion and with a specific focus on sustainable gender equity practices;
Hold high-level seminars in conjunction with existing flagship initiatives at the UN and EU, including the World Summit on the Information Society, Generation Equality Forum, Women in Digital, Girls in ICT Days, and European Development Days;
Conduct a combination of online and face-to-face mentoring, training, and lifelong learning programs and courses focused on business and professional development and hosted by successful social entrepreneurs, advocates, and experts, including both men and women;
Co-innovate and implement gender-inclusive policy and business development tools in conjunction with stakeholders in the public, private, and civil society sectors;
Increase entrepreneurial competences through international academic cooperation including the development of joint international summer schools, digital learning materials and tools that promote research collaboration, student mobility, and work placements;
Inspire the next generation of innovators by elevating a new group of leaders, role models, and advocates for gender equity in social innovation and entrepreneurship.

The full scope of EQUALS-EU network activities cover 29 EU Members States and Associated Countries and nine non-European countries in both the Global North and Global South.