The BioMedical Research and Innovation (R&I) sector is characterised by specific challenges, emphasising the need for intersectional gender equality interventions with the potential to benefit health and wellbeing in society. The INCLUDE project drives institutional change towards gender equality and inclusiveness by co-designing, implementing, and evaluating innovative measures to advance Gender Equality Plans (GEPs) within seven public BioMedical Research Performing Organisations (RPOs) and one private Research and Technology Organization (RTO) using intersectional and intersectoral approaches. A geographically inclusive consortium covers 2 EU Member States and 6 Widening countries, in Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Western Europe, with more and less advanced policy frameworks. INCLUDE conducts a comprehensive analysis of GEPs and data collection practices already in place, identifying areas for improvement and potential challenges. The analysis, alongside a mapping of good practices and tools, and the identification of the competencies and learning needs of implementing partners, will inform the co-design of inclusive GEP pilot actions to improve intersectional gender equality. Substantial operationalization of intersectionality is enshrined in the consortium composition comprising scholars and activists who possess significant knowledge, expertise, and specialised tools for implementing an intersectional approach. Tailored training programs and collaborative learning initiatives, the establishment of thematic hubs, a mentoring scheme, and study visits will ensure that internal capacities are fostered, and knowledge sharing is promoted. INCLUDE places emphasis on the long-term sustainability of an intersectional approach to GEPs through the elaboration of detailed sustainability plans and the strengthening of partnerships with the local innovation ecosystems, while promoting and multiplying networking efforts through the INCLUDE toolkit, CoP and Manifesto.

Gender4STEM “Gender aware education and teaching”, is a co-funded Erasmus+ project, led by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST). This project was launched in 2017 and gathered 6 partners, experts in gender, technological and learning issues, beside LIST: Consulio from Croatia, VHTO from the Netherlands, SMART VENICE from Italy, FUNDATIA POFESSIONAL from Romania and Women in Digital and LIST from Luxembourg. To spark greater interest in STEM disciplines among girls, the project Gender4STEM aims to support teachers in stepping up their gender fair teaching practices. “Girls are not talented at science, science is for geeks and thus not for girls…” These are some persistent gender stereotypes in science education. We want to tackle this issue and therefore, we have developed a platform for teachers, to provide them with concrete tools for more gender-fair teaching practices. Our platform is called Gender4STEM Teaching Assistant (https://edu.gender4stem-project.eu/). STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. These are key drivers for innovation. The problem is that girls are still underrepresented in these disciplines. One of the reasons why STEM disciplines are unappealing to girls might be persistent gender stereotypes. Culture, education, training, labour market practises can be vectors of these stereotypes. Teachers are not always equipped to manage gender diversity in their classrooms. For example, there is little teacher training dealing with these issues. Likewise, teaching materials often lack female role models to stimulate interest of young girls in STEM. Built on the survey of the common gender stereotypes in STEM education in EU (IO1) and the state of the art, as well as the creation of relevant teaching materials to counteract these stereotypes (IO2), the Gender4STEM platform (IO4) provides about 100 teaching materials to support them in stepping up gender-fair teaching practices: a) quiz and tips to raise awareness on gender stereotypes and increase knowledge of women in STEM, b) guidelines to organize gender balance coding sessions or STEM female role model meetings, andc) videos introducing inspiring women in STEM testimonials etc.The Gender4STEM platform is primarily for teachers, but is also relevant for school psychologists and counsellors, as well as career guidance advisors of Secondary Level Education. How can it be used? This is straight forward: Teachers create an account and connect to the Gender4STEM Teaching Assistant platform. Then we recommend using the self-assessment tool (IO3) to find out how gender fair their teaching practices are and propose personalized recommendations of teaching materials (IO3) and experiment them in classrooms.They can also attend the Gender4STEM hands-on blended training (IO5). If they want to know if they have gender-conscious or unconscious biases when teaching, they can participate in two training sessions. They discover the Gender4STEM Teaching Assistant and available teaching materials, with which they can experiment in classrooms, and they can share their difficulties and successes regarding the issue of gender fair in teaching. Thanks to the Gender4STEM platform and training, teachers are fully equipped to get mote girls excited about STEM. At the end of the project, the Gender4STEM community involved about 50 EU teachers, 100 EU students and 60 EU experts. 6 gender fair teaching projects were conducted in European Schools 2019 and 280 people from target groups participated in the multiplier events. More than 2200 people visited the Gender4STEM website (https://www.gender4stem-project.eu/) and about 160 follow the project Facebook page (Gender4stem.erasmus.project). We count 420 users of the Gender4STEM Teaching Assistant platform, among them about 70 have used the self-assessment tool and received recommendations of teaching materials to step up their gender fair teaching. We’re also starting to plan for relevant applications of the self-assessment tool and the recommendations’ system in other areas, for examples: How to promote gender sensitivity among companies, in HR management practices (recruitment or careers’ mobility)? How to promote gender sensitivity in Science and Technology research and academic sector. Of course, the final objective is always to attract more girls and women in STEM!

The overall objective of the project is to develop a social networking and awareness platform dedicated to childcare and work life balance. The platform builds on neighbourhood networks enabling citizens to come together and share tasks, time and skills relevant to childcare and after school education/leisure which have become unaffordable in times of stagnation and austerity. To achieve this objective the project borrows and integrates the concepts of time banking with some already developed digital social innovation experiments in the child care field represented in the consortium and seeks to further exploit the potential of ICT networks to increase participatory innovation in the sense of self-organizing neighbourhoods. The specific objectives of the project are: - Exploring new ways for sharing and socializing child care needs and care work in urban communities facilitated by ICT - Supporting families, couples and individuals with care tasks to find flexible solutions in their daily lives to cope with care work and time management needs in more balanced ways - Raising awareness on the importance of overcoming gender biased views of care roles, as well as stereotypes related to intersected social differences (class and economic status, ethnic background, sexual orientation, etc.) Proposed actions: - Needs analysis and residents engagements in 7 Cities in Europe activating 7 Families_Share City Labs where needs analysis, platform co-design, pilot testing and local raising awareness campaigns will integrate. - Co-designing an operational framework and a scalable collective awareness platform engaging existing communities of parents - Pilot the platform in 7 cities - Evaluate the impact of the adopted techno-social solution and the user engagement strategy -Develop a scalable and replicable model for an affordable childcare scheme based on the Families Share Platform that will ensure sustainability and further exploitation in other EU cities.

The CASPER project, in response to the SwafS-11-2019 call, aims at examining the feasibility of establishing a European award or certification system for gender equality in research organisations. On the basis of an in-depth assessment of existing relevant systems, the project proposes to devise and validate four scenarios, including a no-action scenario, in co-creation with national and international stakeholders. Each scenario will be examined via a walk-through methodology to understand their respective strengths/weaknesses, costs/benefits, other positive/negative impacts or their contextual relevance, and subsequently validated with stakeholders. The project will focus predominantly on gender-related inequalities in research and innovation, and will incorporate an intersectional perspective where possible. It will take place over a 2-year period, and consider not only the EU and its Member States but also relevant countries for gender equality certification/award systems such as NO, IS, CH, US or AU.

"<< Background >>Even if it tends to change, women remain still underrepresented in STEM jobs. “Girls are not talented at science, science is for geeks and thus not for girls…”. These are some persistent gender stereotypes in science education that can explain this underrepresentation. The former Gender4STEM Erasmus+ project (No 2017-1-LU01-KA201-023926) aimed at tackling this issue and therefore, developed a hands-on training and a digital assistant platform for teachers, to provide them with concrete tools for more gender-fair teaching. The Gender4STEM blended approach combining, hands-on training and digital assistant platform (https://edu.gender4stem-project.eu/), was really appreciated and impacted from 2017 to 2020, more than 3000 actors (teachers, pupils, experts…). At the end of the project, we reached the conclusion that fairness in teaching is becoming a real competence to develop among School education and that requires to be accompanied thanks to an advanced approach. The overview of the project results has thus concluded on multiple developments that could be done to fully exploit the Gender4STEM approach potential.Building on the Gender4STEM experiment, the Fairness In Teaching (FIT) new project aims thus at developing an advanced approach to stepping up fair teaching practices especially in STEM disciplines, given consequently equal opportunities and access to STEM among diverse range of pupils. We understand fairness as impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination. It will target 3 target groups:(1) The teachers regrouping teachers and especially teachers in STEM, head of teachers and schools directors, School delegates in digital education and delegates for equality between girls and boys, but also psychologists and career advisors in primary and secondary level education(2) The pupils from primary and secondary level education (children and youngsters of 11-18 years old); the final beneficiary of project results.(3) Associated partners: teachers' training centers, representatives of regional/national and EU authorities, STEM ambassadors etc.Promoting inclusion, diversity and fairness, the FIT project answers the “Diversity and Inclusion” priority of the Erasmus+ programme. Developing digital assets, it also contributes to support teachers in enhancing digital skills and competence development and engage them in digital transformation, thus answering the “Digital Transformation” priority of the Erasmus+ programme.<< Objectives >>The project aims at:1)Extending the competency framework of fairness in teaching from gender to intersectional approach and observing a continuum between primary and secondary School level, and developing its associated assessment questionnaires and training sessions (online as face-to-face), so that it will become a reference for School education. 2)Ensuring the large accessibility of the digital assistant platform, e.g. strengthening its Multilanguage dimension, extending its contents to primary Schools and intersectional approach, and developing the algorithms that provide recommendations of fair teaching materials and its interactive features (e.g. opportunities to give feedback about the use of teaching materials, to rate and comment them, ant to suggest new ones). 3)Developing a FIT community of practice as a pillar to guarantee the large transferability of the FIT advanced approach.<< Implementation >>Activities will follow a design thinking process (DT), collaboratively engaging the 3 target groups thanks to the FIT community of practice (project result 5 (PR5)). It will raise awareness of target groups (especially teachers) about fairness in teaching and engage them as “agents of -change” by helping them to develop specific skills to engage more diverse pupils in STEM disciplines. The 5 non-linear DT approach (Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test), will result in 4 other project results (PR). -PR1: Development of the FIT competency framework-PR2: Development of the exploitation of the FIT digital assistant platform-PR3: Development of the features of the FIT digital assistant platform-PR4: Development of the FIT training for teachersThe first stage of the process is to gain an empathic understanding of the problem, that is to find out more about the area of concern through observing, engaging and empathizing with people thanks to co-design workshops to extend:-the issue of gender stereotypes and biases in STEM education to fairness in teaching thus integrating a broader intersectional approach, -the target to primary level education (not only secondary level education)The Define stage results in analysing observations from stage 1 and synthesizing them in order to define the core problems: ensure the large transferability of the FIT approach as an advancing framework for the development of fairness in teaching. Then the Ideate stage allows to ""think outside the box"" to identify new solutions to the problem statement and conduct in the Prototype step; an experimental phase which aims to identify the best solutions to answer problems identified and defined in phase 1 and 2. These three first stages of the Design Thinking process allow to produce the prototypes of -the competency framework for fairness in teaching and its associated assessment tools (PR1)-the advanced FIT digital assistant platform (PR2 and PR3)-and the FIT training (PR4)The Test is the final stage of the 5 stages-model which must be consider as an iterative process, so that the results generated during the testing phase are often used to redefine one or more problems and document the understanding of the users, the conditions of use, how people think, behave, and feel, and to empathize. This test step conducts in pilot sessions allowing to test and improve the designed PR1, 2, 3 and 4 outputs with the target groups, in PR4.<< Results >>The FIT project will conduct in the production of 4 main outcomes:-The competency framework of fairness in teaching for secondary and primary Schools, and its associated assessment tools so that teachers can find out how their teaching is fair.-A FIT digital assistant platform with fair teaching materials that teachers can experiment with into their classrooms,-The training contents which will contribute in stepping up teachers’ fair practices.-The FIT community of practice that will allow to develop the FIT project results in a collaborative approach, but also disseminate them.Finally, the FIT project aims to trigger a real process of change regarding fairness in teaching among primary and secondary level education so that more diverse range of pupils will equally access to STEM opportunities."