Getting started with Communities of Learning and Communities of Practice at next SPEAR meeting in March
Our journey towards getting on the road with our project has begun. During the next meeting at SDU
from 12th until 14th of March, our first workshops for our Communities of Learning and the first
sessions of our Communities of Practice will take place. Together they build the interdependent groundwork for SPEAR.
The interdependency of those two communities provides us with the opportunity to share upcoming questions, obstacles and
observations and to react to them directly and in the best possible way.
So let’s look further into what these two concepts mean for our project.
So let’s look further into what these two concepts mean for our project.
A journey to an academic institution where women and men are equal
During the next four years the nine SPEAR universities will be engaged in a
common journey – though each starting from a different point of departure and each ending at a different destination.
All of us head towards gender equality in our universities, even though it can be found through many different tracks.
However, we will keep in contact each other, by means of modern information technology, giving each other advice and
directions and sharing our good and bad moments.
Reflections on the Kick-off meeting of the SPEAR project. Part 3
As the kick-off was taking place in Odense, the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, the organizers could not have passed the opportunity to present his legacy to the consortium in an engaging way – during the dinner the partners had to detect any gender/social bias indication hidden in one of writer’s stories.
Reflections on the Kick-off meeting of the SPEAR project. Part 2
Presentations
The kick-off agenda also included an introductory presentation about the project and its structure given by Ms. Myers, followed by the presentations on H2020 regulations for project implementation as well as Policy Perspective on Gender Equality in EU R&I delivered by Ms. Simona Misiti, Project Advisor and Ms. Anne Pépin, Senior Policy Officer respectively. The participants learned about H2020’s approach to the Gender Equality and relevant supported activities aimed at facilitating institutional change through Gender Equality Plans.
Reflections on the Kick-off meeting of the SPEAR project. Part 1
On January 23-25, 2019, eleven partners from nine European countries gathered in the Danish city of Odense to kick-start the implementation of SPEAR – a four-year Horizon 2020 project supporting and implementing plans for gender equality (GEPs) in research and academia.
The coordinator, the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) chose an engaging and creative approach to the meeting structure – all three days were filled with brainstorming exercises, culture presentations, interactive discussions, personal interviews and sharing personal impressions on relevant issues.
Launch of SPEAR
SPEAR (Supporting and Implementing Plans for gender Equality in Academia and Research) is a Coordination and Support Action project funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Science with and for Society (SwafS) programme. Despite numerous EU-wide projects aimed at improving gender equality (GE) in academia, challenges persist, and GE practitioners and change agents experience fatigue and lack of support structures. SPEAR will initiate institutional change in nine European research performing organizations (RPOs) by implementing gender equality plans.