Modifying Institution by Developing Gender Equality Plans (MINDtheGEPs)
Project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme
Grant Agreement: 101006543
Duration: 48 months
Start date: 1/02/2021
The project official website
Follow MindTheGeps on Twitter
A new European research project, awarded with almost 3 million Euro and starting on 1st February 2021, prepares the ground for structural changes to promote gender equality in public and private research organisations. Led by the University of Turin, the four-year MINDtheGEPs project will identify good practice and help shape measures to reduce gender imbalances in seven research institutions and generate data to support the development of national and European policy for gender equality in research performing organisations.
The MINDtheGEPs team is a mix of EU institutions coordinated by the University of Turin. The project has partners from Italy, Spain, Ireland, Poland, Serbia, Sweden and The Netherlands. Seven partners: University of Gdańsk, the School of Electrical Engineering-University of Belgrade, Jagiellonian University, Institute of Technology Tralee, Automotive Technology Centre of Galicia (CTAG), National Research Council (CNR) and the University of Turin will set up and implement gender action plans. They receive support from the Italian National Research Council (CNR), Knowledge and Innovation (K&I), Uppsala University and Elsevier.
The gender equality plans developed in the project will include both cultural and structural aspects. This includes removing barriers to hiring and the career development for women in research, and to contrast gender inequalities within governing bodies and evaluation committees. This ensures actions are aligned with the European Commission’s objectives for gender equality in European research.
MINDtheGEPS will both map existing data and generate new datasets on sex and gender differences to support the development of policy on gender action. This qualitative and quantitative data collection will drive the implementation of effective gender equality plans that can be monitored and evaluated. Furthermore, having a scientific publisher on board allows MINDtheGEPs consortium to develop structures to collaborate with scientific journals and publishers on gender differences.
A number of workshops on empowerment and gender education for both male and female researchers in the early to middle stages of their career will be organised. Measures to balance work and family life, aimed at both men and women, will be focused on. A set of key professional profiles, for example Gender Equality Managers, and Gender Database Manager, that can act as experts on gender equality will be designed and implemented, to complement existing roles.
News
On 27 May 2025 in the Villa Celimontana in Rome will be held the MINDtheGEPs' Project final conference. After four years of dedicated work, collaboration and progress MINDtheGEPs will reflect on its achievements and plan future actions to promote gender equality in research organisations. In fact, since 2021, the project partners have hardly worked to increase women’s participation in research and innovation, enhance women's career prospects, improve gender balance in decision-making bodies in research organisations, and integrate gender dimensions into research content. The conference will provide an opportunity to present the results achieved and, above all, look to the future ...
On 14 May 2025, a new session of the MINDtheGEPs Open Forum was held focused on how to integrate gender-sensitive practices into academic publishing in order to foster systemic change in research and academia. During the webinar, which took the form of a conversation, Dr Magdalena Żadkowska from the University of Gdańsk and Miguel Santinhos from Elsevier shared their different experiences and perspectives on the topic. This Open Forum session builds on the insights and results from the MINDtheGEPs' deliverable “Gendering Scientific Publications Guidelines”, with key recommendations summarised in our latest policy brief, Reviewing for Gender Equality: Leveraging Scientific Publishing ...
MINDtheGEPs’ new Policy Brief “Reviewing for gender equality: Leveraging scientific publishing for systemic change”, edited by Miguel Santinhos, is available since April 2025. The policy brief presents a set of guidelines based on MINDtheGEPs' experience, designed to reshape the approach to gender in academic publishing and promote inclusivity at every stage of the research process. The recommendations are directed at four key target groups: Students and early-career researchers; Senior researchers and educators; Editors and reviewers; Gender equality educators. "Reviewing for gender equality: Leveraging scientific publishing for systemic change" on Zenodo ...
The MINDtheGEPs project's YouTube channel collects and shares a series of short videos presenting reflections, challenges, achievements and success stories from the project. Within this framework, four videos on the K&I experience were also published in April 2025. In these videos, Claudia Colonnello (responsible for Monitoring and Evaluation Unit) addresses some of the relevant issues experienced during the project: Monitoring and evaluation as ongoing support; Reflection to support sustainability and structural change; The value of measuring success with the context in mind; The value of collaboration between partner organisations ...
In March and April 2025, the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit conducted the second round of on-site visits to the seven RPOs involved in implementing the GEP. The aim of these visits was to provide a final assessment of the progress and outcomes achieved by each organisation during the implementation of their Plans. The visits also aimed to encourage participatory reflection among all the actors and key stakeholders involved in the project regarding the main challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned from the experience. Reflection focused particularly on the positive impact in terms of institutionalising the promoted changes and sustaining the activated ...
Within the framework of the MINDtheGEPs project activities, two online Open Forums have been realised. The first one, entitled ‘Advancing Gender Equality in Research - Insights & Synergies from the Elsevier 2024 Report’, took place on 27th November 2024. During this event, Ylann Schemm, VP Corporate Responsibility & Executive Director of Elsevier Foundation, will present key data from Elsevier’s 2024 Gender Report, which examines two decades of gender equality progress in research and innovation. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion with research leaders on reshaping evaluation practices to further support gender equality (to watch the video of the ...
In October 2024, the activities of the MINDtheGEPs project led to the drafting of a new policy brief entitled ‘Research through a gender lens: Tools for gender-conscious research across various fields & organisations’. This policy brief promotes inclusive research and encourages researchers to work for gender equality: both on their own and in their teams and organisations. Recommendations include brainstorming, research proposals, research terms, dissemination, how to be a gender-aware researcher and promoting gender-aware research and research practice. The brief is available on Zenodo ...
Between November 2023 and February 2024, the K&I team carried out mid-term evaluation on-site visits to the seven organisations involved in implementing their Gender Equality Plan, as part of the monitoring and evaluation activities. The visits provided an opportunity to implement all the planned evaluation activities, as well as to participate in and observe some of the GEP's initiatives. One such initiative was the international conference “Beyond Genders”. Intersectionality between theory and practice”. Interdisciplinary Looks”, organised by the CIRSDe in Turin; the first Empower Lab event at the CNR in Rome; a meeting of the Fahrenheit Women's Club, a partnership ...
On-site visits to the seven organisations implementing a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) under the project will take place between November 2023 and January 2024 The purpose of these visits is to discuss the progress of the plan with the local teams, to involve the key actors involved in the definition and implementation of the GEP in the evaluation process, and to collect and deepen the information needed to assess the progress made, the main challenges encountered and the lessons learned during the first phase of GEP implementation. The visits, which will be carried out by K&I's Central Monitoring and Evaluation ...
“Climate change is intensifying extreme events. In 2023 alone, there have been floods, heat waves, wildfires, and other events – in many different countries, impacting many different people. It is time to discuss the role of gender in societies affected by these events, and within academic communities. As well as the gender dynamics of the relationship between science and society.” These topics will be presented by Giuliana Rubbia from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (Italy) during the new session of the MINDtheGEPs Open Forum. The meeting, which will take place online on 8 November 2023 from 15:00 to ...
The new issue of our newsletter has been online since 17 October 2023. This issue is dedicated not only to the presentation of the fifth session of the Open Forum, but also to the celebration of Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin, economist at Harvard University, to the latest posts on the Ethics Blog at Uppsala University, to the second meeting of the Board of Directors of the 'Women's Club' of Fahrenheit Universities (FarU), promoted by the Medical University, the Technical University and the University of Gdansk, and to the creation of a new website of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, ETF ...
MINDtheGEPs' second Policy Brief "Gender quotas & positive action: An attack on meritocracy?", edited by Nastassja Cipriani, Cristina Solera, and Anna Holm Bodin, is available on the Zenodo platform. This policy brief provides an overview of the multifaceted debate on positive action to eliminate gender imbalances in research organisations, presenting the main arguments for and against, as well as possible pathways for their implementation. The policy brief draws on the process of developing Gender Equality Plans and interviews conducted within MINDtheGEPs. It concludes with the presentation of two case studies from Italian universities.For those interested, it is available on Zenodo ...
On 12th May 2023, the fourth Open Forum “No data: no policies” promoted by the MINDtheGEPs project will be held, during which the results and recommendations that emerged from the work of mapping the push and pull factors that (de)construct gender inequalities in a research career will be presented. In particular, evidence and recommendations will be shared regarding, four aspects: 1. Decision-making bodies: defining leaders and institutions according to gender; 2. Balancing recruitment and career progression; 3. Improving work-life balance; 4. Gender-biasing research and teaching. Speakers at the Open Forum will include Cristina Solera of the Centre for Women and Gender ...
In July 2022, the activities of WP7 “Monitoring and Evaluating GEPs” started. The Work Package, coordinated by K&I, is aimed at supporting the 7 teams involved in the design and development of the Gender Equality Plans, both in the specific activities of each research organisation and in the transversal activities of the MINDtheGEPs Project. Within this framework, Deliverable D7.1 “Evaluation Plan” was delivered in September 2022, which describes the characteristics and approaches of the evaluation and monitoring model used in the project, the reference dimensions and indicators, and the methodological aspects (sources used, technical tools, procedures, etc.). The document also ...
On 7th and 8th June 2022 MINDtheGEPs organised the first train-the-trainer workshop aimed at strengthening capacities for sustainable change in partner organisations. Around 50 people met in Vigo to discuss basic concepts and tools to promote organisational change, and how “situated knowledge” can support the implementation of Gender Equality Plans (GEPs). On the first day, work focused on raising awareness of gender equality in research and academia, providing participants with the necessary skills to design, negotiate, implement, and monitor a GEP. This part of the workshop also dealt with resistance to gender equality. The second day of the workshop focused ...
In May 2022, at the seven research organisations involved in the implementation of the GEPs, the data collection activity for the initial assessment of gender imbalances was completed. Starting from the last months of 2021, in fact, each institute started collecting quantitative and qualitative information and data on the existing situation in their organisation. Several methodologies were used to do this, including interviews with researchers and key informants, processing data already existing in their archives, and collecting national and regional statistics (for more information see here). The activity involved not only the research teams, but also the administrative staff of ...
Since February 2022, the MindtheGEPs project has published a newsletter through which you can be regularly informed about its activities and achievements. If you would like to receive the Newsletter, you can subscribe at this link. The first number of the Newsletter was published on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and was entitled “Paving the way for quality in research: First newsletter issued!”. This issue offers an illustration of the structure of MINDtheGEPs and the key areas in which it intends to intervene. The second number of the Newsletter “Gender audits & our ...
The MINDtheGEPs project includes a communication and dissemination programme coordinated by the Uppsala University. In addition to fostering the partners' capacities to communicate with different internal and external audiences interested in their actions and to report on MINDtheGEPs activities and results, the programme aims to foster the exchange of ideas and experiences with organisations and individuals interested in promoting gender equality in science and higher education through institutional and cultural change programmes. In this context, a short illustrative video on MINDtheGEPs has been on the project website since 20 December 2021, available in the five languages of the implementing bodies ...
The kick-off meeting of MINDtheGEPs project was held online from 4 to 5 March 2021. During the first day, after a welcome address by the rector of Turin University (project leader and host of the meeting), a session on Gender Transformations in the Academy: Using Gender Structure Theory to Identify Challenges and Solutions was held. Barbara J. Risman from the University of Illinois gave a keynote talk. https://media.unito.it/?section=OnDemand&searchtext=Fulvio Esposito, Italian Representative in the European ResearchArea Committee and MINDtheGEPs Advisory Board, and Pauline Stoltz, Aalborg, University and At-Gender Board Member, were discussant in the session. On the following day, the project ...