Background
SDU's Gender Equality Plan organises and monitors the equality efforts across the entire organisation. For several years, even prior to SDU’s GEP was launched in 2021, local and central committees and individuals have been engaged in important initiatives; The GEP framework will offer a way to gather and disseminate and thus optimize and further develop this work.
A part of SDU's Gender Equality Plan is the annual Gender Equality (GE-) Action Plans from the five faculties and the central administration; these Action Plans replace the annual reports to which the six local gender equality committees thus far have contributed. Similarly, SDU's overall annual GE Action Plan replaces the overall annual report that the Central Gender Equality Committee and GET have previously prepared, presented and obtained approval for by the Executive Board.
What is a GEP?
The European Commission defines a GEP as "a set of commitments and actions that aim to promote gender equality in an organisation through a process of structural change”.
What is included in SDU's GEP?
SDU's GEP consists of concrete reporting documents but also (and crucially) of annual activities that, based on the implemented process plan, involve all aspects of SDU's management and equality organisation, locally and centrally. The core elements are consequently:
- An annual and publicly available GE Action Plan for SDU
- An annual and internally available GE Action Plan for each main area (the faculties and central administration)
- The process plan for a GEP cycle covers a 2-year period for each of the main areas, involving all of SDU's equality organisation, including the local and central gender equality committee
How is the GEP-work carried out at SDU?
The work ensures a firm anchoring of equality efforts since all heads of departments and heads of divisions at SDU are responsible for working with 1-2 focus areas in their department or division over a 2+ year period. These focus areas are identified based on the units' own needs, and they often consist of adopting an equality or diversity perspective on other ongoing development tasks. The process model at SDU further ensures that managers have access to close support and assistance from SDU's GE organisation, including the local gender equality committees and GET. The two-year cycle of efforts provides ample time to identify and work with focus areas locally.
The six main areas are also encouraged to launch cross-cutting activities at e.g. faculty level just like SDU's top management, in collaboration with GET and SDU's Central Gender Equality Committee, can launch initiatives for the entire organisation.
The working environment organisation and union representatives are relevant actors to include in the GEP work, and it is also greatly encourage to involve students, both as collaborators and as target groups.
The principles behind SDU's GEP work
- Dialogue: Sparring and knowledge exchange is crucial to the main area's composition of their individual GE Action Plans. The process consequently includes planned and close contact with GET and the main area's own GE committees and also with the Central Gender Equality Committee
- Embedding: Initiatives have to be relevant and make sense locally, to the involved employees, managers and students. After all, they know their own context the best. Consequently, the responsibility for initiating equality efforts is placed as locally as possible
- Network: Efforts are supported throughout since all involved actors are offered qualifying assistance, sparring and inspiration from SDU's broader GE organisation, especially across the local GE Committees, counselling from GET and from SDU's International Gender Advisory Board. This fosters mutual inspiration and capacity building