Gender equality is an integral part of CEU’s foundational values of an open society. CEU is strongly committed to ensuring that its faculty, staff and students are treated and respected equally regardless of their gender identity. To enhance its commitment towards gender equality, in June 2018 CEU joined the Supporting the Promotion of Equality in Research and Academia European initiative (SUPERA project). SUPERA is a European Commission funded project in which together with three other universities from Spain, Portugal and Italy and two research funding organizations, CEU will work towards the common goal of improving gender equality within its structures. The main objective is to devise and implement an evidence-based and community-wide deliberated Gender Equality Plan which tackles gender inequalities, stereotypes and biases in research and academia. CEU understands gender inequality as a complex, structurally embedded cross-cutting issue that needs to be addressed in its multi-layered dimensions, through the horizontal inclusion of a gender perspective in all aspects of its activities. CEU focuses on four key areas of gender inequality, following SUPERA’s key action areas: gender sensitive recruitment, selection and promotion procedures; equality in leadership and decision‐making; presence of a gender dimension in both research content and curricula; and having an academic environment free of stereotypes and gender biases, sexism and sexual harassment.
As part of this undertaking, CEU hired its first Gender Equality Officer: Ana Belen Amil, a CEU Gender Studies alumna and former Project Manager at the Human RightS Initiative (HRSI). Amil will work together with Andrea Krizsan, chair of the Senate Equal Opportunity Committee and research fellow at CEU’s Center for Policy Studies, and various members of the university’s central administration. The Gender Equality Officer can be reached at amila@ceu.edu, and genderequality@ceu.edu. The SUPERA project is managed by Viktoria Koszegi at the CEU Center for Policy Studies (koszegiv@ceu.edu).
To develop its Gender Equality Plan, CEU will start with an institution-wide baseline assessment of gender inequality. From September 2018 until March 2019, members of the CEU community will be invited to participate in a series of diagnostic tools (interviews, surveys, focus groups, case studies, among others) to assess the status of gender inequality at CEU. Results of this assessment will feed into a community-wide process aimed at identifying CEU specific gender equality priorities and objectives for future action. By May 2019, a Gender Equality Plan will be developed to guide future CEU actions on gender equality. CEU will continue its gender equality work by implementing the actions defined in the plan and by monitoring its progress.
This is a key opportunity for CEU to set up sustainable structures for the achievement of gender equality that will continue operating beyond the SUPERA project’s timeline. We aim to integrate actions into CEU’s central administration activities, clearly defining responsibilities, ensuring the delivery of relevant training to the members of different CEU units, and developing mechanisms for continued gender-related data collection and monitoring. For this reason, one of the key aspects for Gender Equality @CEU’s success is the active involvement of all relevant institutional stakeholders (student body, faculty and staff members) across hierarchies.
