Sexual Harassment, Gender-Based Violence & Institutional Culture

Women and especially women in precarious working conditions are at greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment and gender-based violence during their research career. Moreover, compounding factors, such as mobility, precarious contracts, unequal relationships of power, increase the probability of sexual violence and make PhD candidates and postdocs high-risk categories.

The WG4 seeks to gather existing practices in participating institutions to support victims, punish aggressors, and prevent sexual violence. Curative, corrective, and preventive work to eradicate gender-based violence is often done on the ground, by feminist researchers, administrative staff, unions and student associations that implement measures (CLASCHES 2017). Through meetings and workshops, this WG will share and examine those measures in order to bring about best practices to tackle gender-based violence, especially at an early career stage. Since an important part of sexual violence policies consider preventive actions that aim at raising-awareness on the legal framework surrounding sexual violence but also at challenging gender stereotypes and “rape culture” in academia (Buchwald et al. 1993).

This WG4 will also (2) lead reflections on long-term actions appropriate for a transformative agenda. Therefore, this WG will work on best practices to change the overall sexist research culture, through mapping existing initiatives in participating institutions and with workshops where other stakeholders outside academia will share insights, as well as exchanging with similar projects.

Conferences and Events

Annual Conference in Tirana (15–17 February 2024):

Titled “Making Young Researchers’ Voices Heard to Prevent Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education”, this event brought together over 60 participants from Albania, Türkiye, Kosovo, Montenegro, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania, Portugal, Lithuania, and other ITCs.

The conference successfully created a platform for dialogue between researchers and policymakers, with sessions on institutional responses, national policies, and the role of cultural transformation. The conference outcomes informed the thematic focus of the upcoming Lyon Conference on “Implementations”.

Collaborative Research & “Writing together” initiative

WG4 established three thematic subgroups under the “Writing Together” initiative :

  • Sexual Harassment and GBV in Higher Education (Leads: Philippe Liotard & Rakibe Külcür): Focused on institutional mechanisms, UniSAFE tool applications, and the role of leadership in prevention culture.
  • Migration, Discrimination, and Intersectionality (Leads: Elif Kaya & Zada Pajalic): Exploring links between migration, academic precarity, and gender inequality; includes a comparative approach on GBV among migrant and non-migrant academic women.
  • Social Media and GBV (Leads: Gul Kurtoglu Eskisar & Maria Angeles Blanco-Ruiz): Addressing symbolic violence and online harassment targeting young women researchers.

Each subgroup is producing a set of white papers, book chapters, and journal articles under the umbrella volume “Gender-Based Violence and Institutional Culture in Higher Education”.

Short-Term Scientific Missions (STSMs) and WG4 workshops 

WG4 facilitated the planning of STSMs to develop further collaborations and joint publications. 

In October 2023, WG4 organised a workshop on policy mapping of institutional responses to GBV in Sete (FRA). The workshop also provided an opportunity to prepare the call for papers for the 2024 conference in Tirana and to begin planning the gender-based violence session to be presented at the final 2025 conference in Paris. 

Training and Dissemination (WG4 & WG6)

Workshops in Istanbul, 2024: Practical sessions on gender equality plans, consent culture, and participatory approaches to policy implementation.

Policy Briefs: Drafted from WG4 discussions for EU-level dissemination on transforming institutional culture in academia.
Web Outreach: Regular contributions to gendervoices.eu, highlighting WG4’s events, interviews, and calls for participation.

Publications

  1. White Papers and Policy Briefs: 
    • “Institutional Culture and Consent in Academia” – summary from Tirana discussions. 
    • “Intersectional Barriers for Migrant Women in Academia” – based on WG4 subgroup outputs. 
    • “Best Practices for GBV Prevention in Higher Education” – co-produced with CPED and UniSAFE. 
  2. Conference Proceedings: