About Gender and Diversity

MAIN AIM

The main aim of the Gender, Diversity and Global Justice platform is to serve as a platform for stakeholders to:

1. Access the multidisciplinary expertise of Utrecht University scholars in gender, diversity and processes of in- and exclusion, and
2. Join forces in solving complex gender and diversity issues and develop strategies for the implementation of diversity in order to achieve societal inclusion and change.

What do we do?

The Gender, Diversity and Global Justice platform seeks to promote effective inclusion through:

Community building

• Creating opportunities for collaboration between gender and diversity researchers across disciplines. 
• Providing meaningful connections between multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders.

Scientific excellence

• Focusing on scientifically-based strategies for the implementation of gender and diversity programs
• Enriching ongoing scientific research within and across disciplines
• Developing new scientific insights with strong empirical foundations

Societal impact

• Creating a platform for demand-driven research
• Approaching gender and diversity issues as they are presented by our societal partners
• Visualising and disseminating research findings to a broad audience

How do we do it?

Joining forces to solve complex issues

• Lunch meetings: an informal colloquium series for Utrecht University experts from different disciplines to showcase their research on gender and diversity 
• Stakeholder-researcher meetings: societal partners and researchers come together to learn about gender and diversity issues and establish collaborations
• IOS seed money projects
• Provide advice/contract research to national and international institutions (e.g. at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on the issue of the representation of Women and Girls in ‘STEM’, i.e. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
• Development of tools to monitor inequalities in diverse societal institutions, for example the Inclusivity Monitor

Tackling gender and diversity challenges on a case-by-case basis

Implementing change in 3 steps:

1. Assessing current inclusiveness and underlying mechanisms: what types of exclusion are currently present in the organization? What are the processes obstructing inclusion in the organisation?
2. Implementing tools for change: how can the organisation promote inclusion?
3. Measuring impact of intervention: did these tools effectively promote inclusion in the organisation?

Fundamental and comparative research

• NWO, ERC driven research
• European Network of Legal Experts in gender equality and non-discrimination

Working towards equality across disciplinary boundaries

The Gender, Diversity and Global Justice platform takes an original approach to research by crossing disciplinary boundaries. It seeks to better understand the complex system that limits gender and minority inclusion by integrating these moving parts through multidisciplinary research and teams.

Unique approach

The result is a unique approach that articulates inequality at three different levels: symbolical, institutional and experiential.

Symbolical

How are women and non-dominant groups and their societal roles represented in the linguistic, narrative and visual structures that shape society?

Institutional

What are effective responses to inequality and exclusion on the institutional level?

Experiential

How do women and non-dominant group members experience the many forms of inequality in the context of social institutions such as the workplace, educational settings, the family, etc. How do these groups experience institutional measures aimed at correcting these inequalities?

Integrated expertise

Improving opportunities for women and other non-dominant groups in one way (e.g., installing legal quota policies for ethnic minorities) often raises barriers somewhere else, for example lack of acceptance of minorities who are hired through such policies and negative work experiences for the targeted minorities. Institutional policies that solely aim at one part of this system, such as career opportunities for women, are not going to work if they do not take into account how they will affect other parts, like gender bias within an organisation or society. Thanks to its interdisciplinary approach, the Hub proposes integrated expertise and responses to gender- and diversity-related challenges.

Maximizing societal impact

The platform’s approach is designed to overcome the theory/practice divide and maximize the societal impact of scientific research through three channels: expertise, research and awareness-raising.