Geco

About the Project

Improving Gender Equality Competences of Persons Responsible for Personnel Development in Private Enterprises and Higher Education

Many companies and universities are becoming aware that gender equality is an important issue in order to cope with growing competition for qualified staff members and to assure future economic success. The GeCo Project brings together gender equality knowledge and expertise in the workplace, from seven European organisations across 6 countries, to assist HR management professionals in applying gender equality techniques in their work environments.

The GeCo project has developed a European E-toolkit with practical examples of gender equality measures aimed at supporting organisations in developing similar programmes. The toolkit describes concrete examples and change processes in detail, which have been implemented successfully across Europe. The aim of GeCo is to inspire and motivate decision makers to improve gender quality in their own organisation. Try out the innovative toolkit.

Another important deliverable of the GeCo project was a series of national network meetings in each partner country, complementing the online toolkit. They were delivered to a range of organisations so that they could learn more about the good practice within our case studies, and to share their own good practices with each other.

The UKRC's event was held on 27th June 2012 at the Ron Cooke Hub in the University of York Campus. View the presentation.

Following an introduction to the UKRC-WISE and GeCo, Sue Couling of the Chemistry Department at the University of York, gave a very informative talk on Athena SWAN Award. Her department holds a Gold Athena SWAN Award and her insights were well received. See here for her presentation.

John Clark then gave a lively presentation on the Department of Computer Science case study, talking about senior management engagement in the Athena SWAN application process.

Marguerite Gascoine from the School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the University of Reading gave a useful insight into their training and development initiatives for young female reserach staff looking for promotion. View her presentation.

This was followed by Gayle McKeachie from the HR function of the University of Sheffield outlining their WARP initiative which offers funding to provide additional support for women returning from maternity leave to focus on research minimising the impact of this absence on their career development. View presentation

Attendees then discussed the case studies and shared their own initiatives through facilitated discussion. Brief notes of these discussions

View the list of attendees Feedback was positive and many of the attendees stated that the GeCo Toolkit will be a useful resource to use within their organisation.

The project is funded by the European Commission, under the EU programme “Life Long Learning, Leonardo da Vinci, Transfer of Innovation”