ACT (Communities of Practice for Accelerating Gender Equality and Institutional Change in Research and Innovation across Europe) is a Coordination and Support Action project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to advance gender equality at research performing organisations and research funding organisations.
With a total budget of 3 million €, ACT is coordinated by UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) researcher Jörg Müller as principal investigator and involves 17 partners from 10 European countries as well as Argentina. The project lasts for 3 years, from May 2018 to April 2021, and was launched in Barcelona, Spain on 17 and 18 May 2018.
ACT will advance knowledge and sharing on gender equality by promoting communities of practice as agents to develop gender equality actions at research organisations in the European Research Area, including integration of the gender dimension into research and education content. Thus, the project aims at addressing known gender inequalities in three fields: human resource management, decision-making processes, and R&I content including higher education curricula.
Considerable advances have been made in the European Union in the last decade in these areas, but the resulting experiences and practices are scattered widely, which prevents systematic and systemic action. ACT will tackle this situation by developing a network of seven Communities of Practice. These networks with be supported with tailor-made mechanisms for new learning and practice, such as an online hub for knowledge sharing; an adaptable and flexible evaluation framework for monitoring activities and gender equality plans; toolkits for the adoption of best practices; training materials and workshops in participatory methods for institutional change; synergy conferences (online and face-to-face) or thematic videos addressing shared needs. These measures will be designed to reflect institutional diversity as well as differences in national contexts.
