Set up Gender Equality Plans (GEP)

Karin Grasenick, Julia Trattnig | 08 February 2022

Download the sheet containing the main elements of a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) here. Find more information on GEPs, including a step-by-step guide by SPEAR, here and consider the good practice examples for GEPs, collected by the League of European Research Universities (LERU), here.

The new European framework Horizon Europe (see “Horizon Europe”) highlights gender equality as crosscutting principle and increases its importance through the following three levels (European Commission, 2021b):

1. Compulsory Gender Equality Plans as an undefined eligibility criterion for certain categories of legal entities from EU countries and associated countries.
2. Obligatory integration of gender dimension in research and innovation content, an award criterion evaluated under the excellence criterion, unless the topic description explicitly specifies otherwise.
3. Increasing gender balance with a target of 50% women in Horizon Europe-related boards, expert groups and evaluation committees; moreover, gender balance among research teams becomes a ranking criterion for proposals with the same score.

As stated above, public bodies, research, organisations and higher education institutions are obliged to have GEPs in place from 2022 onwards to ensure sustainable institutional change (European Union, 2021).

GEPs offer a set of actions aiming at:

1. Conducting impact assessment of procedures and practices to identify gender inequalities and bias (in a first step, this impact assessment defines gender in a narrow sense, but invites to consider intersections with other forms of inequalities such as race, age or disability as well)
2. Identifying and implementing innovative strategies to correct such gender inequalities and bias
3. Setting targets and monitoring progress via indicators (European Commission, 2012)

This set of actions is intended as a strategy to achieve gender equality and mainstream gender (see “Implement Gender Mainstreaming & Diversity Management”) in institutional structures.
GEPs can also take into account intersections (see “Intersectionality”) with other inequalities (on the ground of race, age, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation). However, this also requires more analytical resources, data and expertise.

The European Commission (EC) foresees the following four mandatory process-related requirements, which are outlined in detail in the Horizon Europe Guidance on GEPs (EC Directorate-General for R&I, 2021) together with five recommended content-related areas:

1. Public document
2. Dedicated resources
3. Data collection and monitoring
4. Training

According to the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE, 2021), GEPs consist of several steps or phases:

• Analysis phase to collect sex-disaggregated data and assess processes and practices critically
• Planning phase to define objectives and targets
• Implementation phase to implement actions and entangle in outreach activities
• Monitoring phase to evaluate process and progress regularly to adjust and improve future interventions

These phases also show the various elements of a GEP to achieve gender equality.

This objective can also be tackled through a Gender Action Plan, which is less extensive, but must also be understood as a roadmap for promoting gender equality through different actions. This means that a Gender Action Plan is also a policy framework addressing different stakeholders, levels and areas of action as well as ensuring transparent results (European Commission, 2020).

The HBP has developed such a Gender Action Plan I (Grasenick, 2019) for the second project phase (April 2019-December 2021). This Gender Action Plan II (Grasenick, 2021) was further developed for the current, last phase of the project (January 2021-March 2023) and positively evaluated by the European Commission. Gender Action Plans of the HBP comprise activities in the four areas of intervention:

• Develop and support HBP Stakeholders to share a Vision on diversity and equality, setting targets, supporting, and carrying out own activities.
• Analyse Structure and Processes of the HBP to identify leverage points for change.
• Contribute to Research and Lectures at HBP-related workshops and publications.
• Support Individuals, Teams, Leaders, offering advice on diversity in teams, as well as career building workshops.

The HBP regularly performs Gender Monitoring to evaluate the ongoing measures. The Report on the Implementation of the first Gender Action Plan (Grasenick, 2020) summarises the experiences with implementing activities related to equal opportunities during the second project phase. Most recent monitoring proved that measures for gender equality continue to be successful as the share of women in HBP leadership positions further increased (Trattnig/Grasenick, 2021).