University

The Gender Equality Plan (hereafter called GEP) represents one of the responses to the current cultural trends in gender equality. Specifically, it is an approach that universities and research institutions can adopt in order to make a strategic impact on the promotion of gender equality, responding to the demands of the new EU 2020-2025 Strategy on the subject, which indicates the key actions to be taken to fully achieve gender balance in every aspect.

Following the guidelines of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), the GEP aims to identify and implement innovative strategies to promote cultural change and equal opportunities in public institutions, including universities, and represents the policy document required to access funding from the Horizon Europe programme.

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) also recognises that "gender inequalities have deep roots, which are more relevant in the family and education context than in the labour context" and defines, through its missions, the priorities of the National Gender Equality Strategy 2021-2026, in a broad programme, aimed both at directly or indirectly encouraging women's participation in the labour market and at removing obstacles along the way to equal opportunities starting from school age.

Since the GEP is constructed on the basis of the characteristics and needs of each individual university or research centre, it is a flexible document that is subject to continuous future additions and adjustments. The plan complies with the five minimum areas indicated by the European Commission, declining them into different objectives. Said objectives, along with the actions to be implemented for the three-year period 2022/24, take into account the current organisational structure of the university, the change in governance in recent years, the composition of the staff and the student community, derived from the reading and analysis of Link Campus University's planning and reporting documents./p>

At a more general level, the objectives of the GEP are framed in the broader context of the university's strategic and operational objectives, as provided for in the university's Integrated Plan.

The Link Campus University GEP was drafted by an extended working group with representation from: governing bodies, teaching and research staff, technical administrative staff and student representation.

The working group was divided into Committees according to the GEP thematic areas.

TRAINING AND COMMUNICATION COMMITTEE

The aim of the Training and Communication Committee is to guide and promote a gender-friendly institutional language and implementtraining initiatives aimed at favouring an inclusive and non-discriminatory culture within the organization. 

Objectives:

• Dissemination of institutional language respecting gender differences;

• Organization of workshops on inclusive decision-making and gender power relations;

• Promotion of equality and condemnation of discrimination through research activities;

• Establishment of scholarships/degree awards on gender issues;

• Design and implementation of training initiatives on relevant days of the civic calendar.

Prof. Silvia Cristofori (Coordinator)
Prof. Lorenza Parisi
Prof. Pierluigi Matera
Dott. Valentina Caferri
Prof. Graziano Elvira Anna
Prof. Sergio Lo Gatto
Prof. Valentina Fedele

WORKPLACE WELLNESS COMMITTEE
(IN COLLABORATION WITH CUG)

The Workplace Wellness Committee, in collaboration with the CUG, is primarily dedicated to developing and promoting initiatives aimed at improving organizational well-being and reducing work-related stress, favouring a healthier and more inclusive work environment. 

Objectives:

• Study and evaluation on the implementation of flexible work arrangements for work/life time balance (smart-working, co-working);

• Development and promotion of welfare-oriented actions;

• Improvement of organizational well-being and reduction of work-related stress;

• Strengthening the role of the Guarantee Committee for Equal Opportunity (CUG), both internally and externally to the University.

Prof. Danila Scarozza (Coordinatric)
Prof. Maria Elena Castaldo
Prof. Giuseppe Sigillò Massara.
Prof. Emilio Greco

COMMITTEE FOR GENDER BUDGETING COMMISSION AND GENDER EQUALITY 

The aim of the Committee for Gender Budgenting and Gender Equality is to promote gender equality and to create policies and tools to ensure a fair and inclusive work environment for all members of the organization.

Objectives:

• Adaptation of the University Information System to collect and monitor disaggregated data related to gender;

• Promotion of periodic and detailed analysis of recruitment/progressions taking into account gender and age groups for both teaching and technical-administrative staff of the University;

• Gender rebalance in matriculation and enrollment.

Prof. Marco Nicolosi (Coordinator)
Prof. Manuela Minozzi
Prof. Cinzia Vallone

INTEGRATION COMMITTEE (with support of the Committee on Learning Disabilities)

The aim of the Integration Committee, with support of the Committee on Learning Disabilities, is mainly to promote the inclusion and provide support to address diversity challenges by ensuring a welcoming and accessible environment for all members of the academic community.  

Objectives :

• Development and implementation of measures and instruments aimed at the inclusion of people with disabilities.

Prof. Maria Elena Castaldo (Coordinator)
condanna di Dott. Marianna Palmisano
Prof. Sergio Lo Gatto
Prof. Pierluigi Matera
Prof. Giuseppe Sigillò Massara

COMMISSION ON LEARNING DISABILITIES

Prof. Desirée Sabatini
Prof. Eugenio De Gregorio
Prof. Antonella Buccione
Prof. Tindara Caprì
Prof. Eliseo Sciarretta

The Committees, chaired by the Delegate prof. Sabatini, operate autonomously in order to achieve agenda goals 2023-2024.

Scientific Coordination:
Carlo Alberto Giusti, Roberto Russo, Linda Mambrini.

Projects and Programmes

L'Università degli Studi Link ha realizzato Over the recent years, Link Campus University developed national and international projects addressing gender issues with the aim of studying and monitoring how in specific areas of research a number of non-real cultural arrangements evolve and change.

• GEMINI (Gender Equality through Media Investigation and New training Insights) (GECERV - Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme), 2023-2025.

  Link University is carrying out this project with 10 other partners: Fondazione Centro Studi Villa Montesca (FCSVM), University of Algarve (Ualg), Aalborg University (AAU), University of Bucharest (UB), National University of Ireland Maynooth (MU), Capacity Ireland (CI), Central European Initiative (CEI), National Inspectorate of Education (NIE), Ministry of Education, Research, Innovation, Youth and Sport (MEYR).

  In line with the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 and from an intersectional perspective, the GEMINI (Gender Equality through Media Investigation and New Training Insights) action-research project aims to address the problem of gender stereotypes by empowering young adults to create products that convey positive messages about gender equality. Focusing on the portrayal of gender identities in TV series and how they can contribute to gender equality,  GEMINI targets European high school students and trainers/teachers in four different European geographic and socio-cultural areas (Mediterranean, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Anglo-Saxon Area) to achieve the following objectives through a varied set of activities: 

  1. examning the production and narrative strategies behind the representation of gender identities in TV series and how such representation affects the promotion of gender equality among target groups through in-depth interviews with key informants, textual/production analysis, and media content/feeling analysis on a selected corpus of TV series.

  2. Understanding target groups related to gender equality by investigating how they perceive the representation of gender identities on television through focus groups, multilingual surveys, and semi-structured interviews.

  3. Improving analytical, interpersonal and communication skills related to gender equality practices and models through the development of educational toolkits.

  4. Spreading a gender equality-oriented culture through self-produced communication initiatives, such as audiovisual products and screenplay competition.

  5. Providing guidance and policy recommendations on how to communicate gender equality to EU and national institutions, as well as broadcasters and streaming platforms.

  6. Developing the results and disseminating them among target groups and the public through the website, communication activities, academic and promotional events, and scientific publications.

   

• “Gendering Internet. Violence, Resilience and Empowerment in digital spaces” – GIVRE (PRIN Project) (at the following link, the presentation of the event carried out at the University)

  The overall goal of the project is to investigate the phenomenon of online violence and its resilience and empowerment practices by pursuing four main objectives: 

  1. advance knowledge and understanding of the interaction between digital technologies and gender, with a focus on gender-based violence, resilience, and empowerment;

  2. promoting understanding and awareness of the mutual formation between digital technologies and gender relations among users;

  3. mapping best practices and collecting policy and project guidelines to address online gender-based violence and promoting empowerment;

  4. Consolidating and formalizing a national action-research network that can provide policy recommendations and guidelines for the design of digital platforms to prevent and combat gender-based violence in online spaces and promoting international collaborations.

   

• “Digital practices, gender, and intimacy in the daily lives of adolescents” (DIGIT) (PRIN Project 2023-2025) (a questo link, the presentation of the event carried out at the University)

  The project aims to describe how Italian girls and boys (15-18 years old) use digital media to construct and articulate their sexual and gender identity. In fact, Italy lacks national studies that frame emerging practices and experiences. The project uses an approach that focuses on/on adolescents with the aim of describing the point of view of boys and girls, involving them/them in the construction of analysis tools. At the same time, the project aims to activate moments of socialization and sharing among peer subjects based on the creation of multimedia products and the organization of meetings led by boys and girls in different Italian regions, dedicated to discussing the role of digital media in the construction of their gender sexual identity.

   

• “WokeIt. Investigating Representation, Inclusivity and Social Responsibility in Rai’s Fictional Audiovisual Productions (2015-2022)”

  The aim of "WokeIt" is to to critically investigate the strategies of inclusion and representation of underrepresented social categories in Italian television series and films produced by Raifiction and Raicinema, the production companies owned by Rai public service, from 2015 to the present. The goal is to understand the real relevance of these new strategies of representation and inclusion in the public broadcaster, in order to develop a framework for systemic and interdisciplinary analysis that, by combining tools from television and production studies, cultural studies, and corporate social responsibility studies, can have an impact along three main lines: research and teaching, industrial practices, and policy.

   

Past and planned initiatives

• 21-23-24 and 25 november 2022 on the occasion of 25 november, World day for the elimination of violence against women, The University organized 4 days, coordinated by the lecturers, dedicated to addressing gender-based violence with the tools available to the University: method, research and sharing results. The program included panel discussions and open discussions divided into the following thematic sessions: "Dialogue - Violence and Consent"; "Dialogue - Violence and Consent"; "Understanding - Research perspectives on gender equality, diversity and inclusion"; "Taking action - Gender equality strategy for an inclusive university". On this occasion, Link University presented a flash mob of the students and unveiled a permanent installation (a red bench was placed in the campus courtyard).

• 21 November 2023: “Gender Equality and Diversity in Audiovisual Media”, a roundtable as part of the project “GEMINI - Gender Equality through Media Investigations and New Training Insights".

• 1 December 2023: Seminar held by jurist Jacopo Benevieri, author of the book "Cosa indossavi?" , focused on discriminatory language in sexual assault trials.

• February 2024: PCTO, dedicated to secondary school students: "Genere, Sessualità e 'nuove' famiglie" (20 hours)

• Febbraio 2024: PCTO, dedicated to secondary school students: "Conoscere la violenza di genere per agire: costruiamo proposte insieme!"

• Spring 2024: Meeting with the participants of the “Fotoromanza” laboratory, focused on reconstructing the memoirs of women over65, coordinated by theater director, researcher and activist Giorgina Pi.

• Spring 2024: Two thematic workshops for students, titled: "Rappresentazione dei classici: Il viaggio delle eroine"; "Genere e generi".

• June 2024: Summer School "Cool-ro-Phobia" curated by professor Brian Shaw (Columbia College Chicago), which consists of a week of hands-on work for artists from the text of the 19th century Italian opera "Pagliacci," which tells the story of a feminicide. - the project is currently being considered by the U.S. Embassy in Italy for institutional collaboration.

• Autumn 2024: Conference: "Le radici socio-culturali della violenza di genere", which plans to explore the complex phenomenon of gender-based violence by taking a popular, educational and academic approach. The main objective is to provide in-depth knowledge of the various gender-based manifestations of violence and analyzing the cultural and social roots that sustain its persistence. In fact, the introduction of GEP initiated a number of important activities for the overall life of the University, in several crucial areas, also inspiring the organization of the strategies of the Single Committee of Guarantee (CUG) of Link Campus University.

 

Download the Gender Equality Plan

Guidelines for the use of gender in language

Activities 2023-2024

Contacts

Gender Issues Office
EMAIL: m.palmisano@unilink.it
TEL: +39 06 3400 6000
The office receives by appointment
Rector's Delegate for Gender Issues and for Learning Disorders: Prof. Desirèe Sabatini
Coordinator: Dott. Marianna Palmisano