Social Safety: From Call to Action

Event date: 10 September 2024
Venue: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague + online
Language of the event: Czech

This year’s National Conference on Gender and Science will focus on the topic of safety and dignity in academic settings with a focus on gender-based violence. The conference is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the Czech Rectors’ Conference, and the Czech Academy of Sciences.

The conference aims to move the debate towards concrete steps and measures that will lead to advancing the actions and policies to address gender-based violence in the Czech academic environment. These stakeholders include the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, management of research and higher education institutions, the newly established School Ombuds Platform, student associations, and other institutions and organizations.

The conference will present examples of newly implemented institutional policies, measures and procedures by higher education and research institutions as well as the tools and support materials developed by the Centre for Gender & Science and the EU-funded UniSAFE project. Recent developments in the Czech Republic (the establishment of ombudspersons in many universities and research organizations, newly adopted measures and institutional policies, and developments at the EU policy level) and necessary next steps, will be discussed in light of recent findings on the prevalence of different forms of violence in the Czech academic environment.

The National Conferences organised by the Centre for Gender & Science of the Institute of Sociology of the CAS are biennial events that focus on gender equality in research and higher education. They aim to address the recent developments and steps and measures needed to further improve academic working conditions in relation to gender equality.