Creation of tools to promote career-development of researchers, especially women, to prevent the talent waste; correction of gender inequalities in decision making processes; integration of gender/sex variables in programs and research contents to foster excellence: those are the points at the center of the project "PLOTINA: Promoting Gender Balance and Inclusion in Research, Innovation and Training", which will officially start on February 24th with a kick-off meeting hosted at the University of Bologna.
The project, coordinated by Professor Tullia Gallina Toschi (DISTAL), President of Guarantee Committee for Equal Opportunities and Rector’s Delegate at the Employee Wellbeing and Non-Discrimination at Work (CUG), assigns the Alma Mater the leadership role of an international consortium focused on gender equality. The overall objective of PLOTINA is to enable the development, implementation and assessment of self-tailored Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) with innovative and sustainable strategies for the Research Performing Organizations (RPOs) involved.
The project, supporting and contributing to the national and international initiatives of the Guarantee Committee for Equal Opportunities, Employee Wellbeing and Non-Discrimination at Work, aims to involve all the subjects belonging to the academic community, from governing bodies (Rector, Academic Senate and Board of Directors) to Department Heads and School Deans, from professors and administrative staff to PhD students and researchers. Students will be the indirect stakeholders of the project activities and results.
The tools developed by PLOTINA will be available on an open-source project platform. In this way, other Research Organizations and Higher Education Institutions will also be able to freely use the project outcomes.
This four-year project is the only one coordinated by an Italian team that has been funded within the program "Science with and for Society" of the European Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. Thanks to its action, the University of Bologna will contribute to the achievement of ERA (European Research Area) gender equalities targets, thus increasing productivity and social value of innovation. In the specific academic context, PLOTINA will contribute to the diffusion of a cultural change based on more inclusive and difference-respectful workplaces.
The project partners will officially start the activities at the kick-off meeting on Wednesday February 24th, at 14, in the Ulysses Hall of the Academy of Sciences. The meeting with the international partners will continue on February 25th and 26th.
The consortium represents the diversity of European RPOs, as well as the multiplicity of European social and cultural environments. The consortium includes the following organizations: University of Bologna (Italy), University of Warwick (United Kingdom), Mondragon Unibertsitatea (Spain), Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao (Portugal), Kemijski Institut (Slovenia), Ozyegin Universitesi (Turkey), Zentrum fur Soziale Innovation GMBH (Austria), Jump Forum (Belgium), Centro Studi Progetto Donna e Diversity MGMT (Italy), and Elhuyar-Zubize SL (Spain).