SPEAR Kick-off in Odense is around the corner

11 partners from 9 European countries will meet in Odense, Denmark between 23 and 25 January 2019 to mark the start of a four-year project supporting and implementing plans for gender equality in research and academia.

SPEAR will focus on supporting implementation of gender equality plans (GEPs) in European universities in accordance with the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE)’s toolkit GEAR. The project will establish communities of learning where supporting partners facilitate sessions as all project partners start to identify both shared and different needs for action in the various institutions. In tandem, SPEAR also establishes communities of practice where focus is on sharing practical experiences and transforming learning points into action and practice as the institutions start their GEP work.

The kick-off meeting will discuss all critical steps in project implementation and will focus on setting the stage for the first sessions for Communities of Learning and Practice (CoL/CoP) and the Project Learning and Support Meetings (PLSM).

The consortium has 11 partners: University of Southern Denmark (Denmark), Uppsala University (Sweden), RWTH Aachen University (Germany), Europa Media Non-profit Ltd. (Hungary), Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH (Austria), South-West University (Bulgaria), University of Plovdiv (Bulgaria), Vilnius University (Lithuania), Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) and University of Rijeka (Croatia). An advisory group representing key GE-stakeholders is affiliated.