SPEAKERS 

Welcome addresses

Ildiko Ipolyi

UniSAFE coordinator

Senior Science Officer / Programme coordinator at the European Science Foundation

Ildi is senior science officer with ESF, coordinates the Inclusive Science Cluster of activities of the organisation. Based on her transdisciplinary background and experience –food engineer, PhD in analytical chemistry, with extensive experience in data management in environmental sciences for science-policy interfacing and  policy support, international network management, capacity building and institutional change – Ildi is an expert research manager and business developer with an intimate knowledge of the European research landscape and funding schemes, with a specific feel for interdisciplinary projects. She is currently the coordinator of the UniSAFE, ACCTING and SUPPORTER projects.

Annick Castiaux 

Rector of the University of Namur

Annick Castiaux is the rector of the University of Namur. She holds a PhD in Physical Sciences. After completing her thesis, she joined the corporate world as a consultant in information and knowledge management. This gave her an insight into the realities of both public and private organizations undergoing transformation. In 2002, she decided to return to her alma mater as Professor of Innovation Management. Her research focuses on innovation ecosystems, collaborative and participative innovation, and sustainable and responsible innovation, within the Creativity and Innovation research Center she created. She teaches innovation management, entrepreneurship, strategy and leadership. Since September 2021, Annick Castiaux has been Rector of the University of Namur.

Ensuring safety and equity in academia and research:
a matter of justice

Françoise Tulkens 

Former judge at the European Court of Human Rights

Françoise Tulkens is former judge at the European Court of Human Rights. She is an accomplished legal scholar with a Doctorate in Law, a Master’s degree in Criminology, and extensive teaching experience, including as a visiting professor at various universities worldwide. Notably, she served as a Judge and held leadership positions at the European Court of Human Rights, chaired the Board of Governors of the King Baudouin Foundation, and contributed to numerous human rights organizations. Her expertise spans general criminal law, comparative and European criminal law, juvenile justice, and human rights protection systems. Françoise Tulkens is the author of many publications in the areas of human rights and criminal law and also co-author of reference books. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Geneva, Limoges, Ottawa, Ghent, Liège and Brighton.

UniSAFE’s conceptual framework and key impacts

Sofia Strid 

Scientific Coordinator of UniSAFE
Associate professor in Gender Studies, Örebro University and Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Gothenburg University

Sofia Strid is associate professor in Gender Studies, Örebro University and Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Gothenburg University, Sweden. She is research leader of the Centre for Violence Studies. She works inter-disciplinary and has held positions in Gender Studies, Political Science, and Sociology in Austria, Belgium, Sweden, and the UK. Strid has worked extensively on developing concepts and methodologies for theorising and measuring gender-based violence, currently as the Scientific Coordinator of the EUH2020-funded projects UniSAFE: Gender-based violence and institutional responses (2021-2024), RESISTIRÉ: Reducing gendered inequalities (2021-2023), and ACCTING: For a fair and inclusive green deal (2022-2025), and as PI of the Swedish Research Council funded Violence Regimes (2018-2022). Her work has been published in e.g., Policy and Practice, Feminist Theory, Health Care for Women International, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Sex Research, Politics and Governance, Social Politics, Social Problems, Sociology, Theory & Society, and Women’s Studies International Forum.

International commitments to end gender-based violence

Olena Kharytonova

Member of GREVIO, Council of Europe

Olena Kharytonova is a member of GREVIO – monitoring body of the Istanbul Convention, Council of Europe. Adviser to the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine on ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men.
A qualified lawyer with more than 20 years of experience in research and teaching activities, including creation and introduction «Gender Studies for Future Lawyers», «Gender Equality and Women’s Rights», «International Human Rights Standards in Criminal Law» courses into the University’s educational process. Visiting research fellow at the University of Graz, Austria (2022/2023).
A member of the working group for the development of the Strategy for the Implementation of Gender Equality in Education Ukraine 2030 (UNPFA, EdCamp Ukraine, 2022); a member of the validation expert group of the implementing of Istanbul Convention in Ukraine (UN Women).
A member of the Association of Women’s Lawyers of Ukraine “JurFem”, Association Internationale De Droit Pénal, Ukrainian Criminal Law Association, Kharkiv Law Society.

Carl Vannetelbosch

UNESCO, Inclusion, Rights and Intercultural Dialogue

With a background in international relations and diplomacy, Mr Vannetelbosch joined UNESCO’s Natural Sciences Sector in 2015 to work first for the science policy team and later for the Sector’s executive office. Joined in 2019 the Social and Human Sciences Sector to work on the UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers. He contributed to the statutory monitoring of the Recommendation and the development of indicators as well as to the implementation of projects on research integrity in Europe and on science, technology and innovation policies in Africa. Current work focuses on the development of a UNESCO programme on freedom and safety of scientists.

Anne Pépin

Senior policy officer, European Commission, DG RTD Gender Sector

Anne Pépin joined the Gender Sector of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) in 2017 as a senior policy officer, in charge of gender equality policies in the European Research Area and of their implementation through dedicated provisions in the Horizon Europe EU framework programme for research and innovation. She has coordinated several EU-funded projects focusing on the promotion of Gender Equality in higher education and research organizations.

 
 

Policy frameworks at national level: Opportunities and limitations for institutional responses
to gender-based violence.

Suzanne Walker

Senior executive officer at the Framework for Consent – Higher Education Authority, Ireland

Suzanne Walker is senior executive officer at the Framework for Consent. Her background is in the field of international development and human rights, where she specifically focused on initiatives that promoted the rights of women and rights, advanced gender equality and tackled gender-based violence in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asian. Suzanne has also worked for the Irish government agency responsible for the provision of Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence services.

Louise Crowley

Professor at the School of Law, University College Cork, Ireland

Louise Crowley is professor at the School of Law, UCC. She is a national voice on intimate partner violence having published widely on the adequacy of legal responses to the challenges of gender-based violence. Louise was a member of the Government appointed expert group that developed the National Framework to End Sexual Harassment and Violence at Third Level and continues to advise on law and policy reform. Louise developed the campus-wide UCC Bystander Intervention programme which educates and empower staff and students to challenge the normalisation of sexual abuse and to recognise their role as active bystanders to effect change and bring about a new normal of safety and respect. This training is delivered across the sector and in workplaces and sporting organisations. In 2022, funded by the Irish Research Council, Louise developed a bespoke second level programme, piloted in 50 secondary schools nationwide. Louise has commenced a partnership with the Irish Defence Forces to deliver Sexual Respect and Ethics training to members of the Army, the Air Corp and the Navy.

Pavla Špondrová

Ombudsperson, attorney- Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Czech Republic

Pavla Špondrová is ombudsperson at Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and a lawyer. She studied sociology, political science and law. She worked at the Government Office of the Czech Republic in the Human Rights Section, during the Czech presidency she negotiated for the EU in the Council of Europe or the UN. After parental leave, she led the “22 percent to equality” project at the Czech Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs regarding equal pay. She now works as an attorney focused on family and equality law and as an ombudsperson of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. She cooperates with the non-profit sector, with academia (e.g. NKC-Gender and Science, Department of Gender Studies of the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague) or participates on work of advisory bodies of the Czech government. She likes people, family, connecting worlds of adults and children, sports, politics, culture and faith, truth, love and hope… And freedom and equality.

Lucie Viktorinová 

Gender focal point at the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic

Lucie works for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports since 2017 as gender focal point. Her main goals at the ministry are introduce the gender perspective in all ministerial materials, actively work with gender mainstreaming tools in both inside and outside processes of the ministry and coordinates the fulfilment of ministerial tasks in gender equity on all levels. Lucie is an expert in gender institutional transformation (on governmental level specifically) and gender analysis. In 2014 Lucie created for the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs gender systemic project focusing on equal pay in the Czech Republic. This project runs successfully until these days. She also works with NGOs, provides gender audits, analytic works, and gender training for various organisations. She has two kids and likes board games, books, movies, dancing, music (women’s voices especially) and feminist aspects in all kinds of culture throughout the world.

Chloé Mour

Policy officer – LGBT+ rights and sexual violence – Ministry of Higher Education and Research, France

Chloé Mour is a policy officer – LGBTQ+ rights and sexual violence at the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research. After completing a BA in Gender Studies and political Science at McGill University (Montreal), she received her Research Master of Sociology at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (Paris) in 2019. Her Master’s thesis analyzed the design and implementation of the national sexual violence policy in French higher education and research institutions. In 2020, she was a Research Assistant at Sciences Po University (Paris) and undertook an international scoping review on the evaluation of EDI policies in higher education. She worked as a European project manager for two years at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) on three projects: ACTongender, GENDER-NET Plus and GENDER STI. She also coordinated the creation of the European COST Action “Making Young Researchers’ Voices Heard for Gender Equality” (2021-2025).

Elisabeth Kohler

Head Gender Equality Unit, CNRS, France

Elisabeth Kohler is the director of the Gender Equality Unit at the French national Centre for Scientific Research since 2018. She has a long experience in different fields, ranging from gender equality to innovation policies, European project management and international cooperation. She has been the coordinator of the EU project GENDER-NET Plus that is dealing with the integration of the gender dimension in research content and participated in GENDER STI, another EU project that is promoting gender equality in international scientific cooperation.

 

Evidence for driving action within institutions:

insights from UniSAFE research

Zuzana Andreska

Researcher- Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
Zuzana Andreska is a gender equality researcher focusing on public policy affairs in the Centre for Gender and Science at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on anti-discrimination and socio-legal aspects of gender-based violence in academia. Within the UniSAFE project she took part in the analysis of institutional policies in the field of gender-based violence.

Anne Laure Humbert

Professor of Gender and Diversity and co-director of the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice at Oxford Brookes University

Anne Laure Humbert is professor of Gender and Diversity and co-director of the Centre for Diversity Policy Research and Practice at Oxford Brookes University. Anne is very experienced in gender equality research at national and EU level, policy analysis and assessment as well as gender statistics. She specialises in applying quantitative methods to comparative social and economic analysis, particularly in relation to work and organisations, entrepreneurship, and work-life balance. She holds visiting positions at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and at the Center for Feminist Social Studies at Örebro University in Sweden. She has previously held positions at Cranfield University and Middlesex University London. Anne is a regular public speaker on gender equality and she enjoys the opportunity to make connections between theory, practice and activism.

María Bustelo

Associate professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM)

María Bustelo is associate professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). She coordinates from the UCM the European project UniSAFE (Making Universities and Research Organisations Safe from Gender-Based Violence by Building a Knowledge Base and Operational Tools, 2021-2024). She leads the Excellence UCM Research Group on “Gender & Politics”, the Master on Evaluation of Programmes and Public Policies since 2002.

Alain Denis

Partner and managing director at Yellow Window

Alain Denis is partner and Managing Director at Yellow Window, a research and design consultancy based in Belgium. He is mainly involved in service and policy design and specialized in user and stakeholder involvement through participatory techniques. The focus of his recent involvement in research projects is on translating research results into operational solutions. This includes solutions to reduce inequalities that increased due to the Covid-19 policies (RESISTIRE), or developing evidence-based solutions to ensure Green Deal policies do not increase inequalities (ACCTING). He has been involved in most activities of the UniSAFE project including the toolkit.

More evidence driving action:
collecting data with a survivor-centred approach

Fredrik Bondestam

Associate Professor in Sociology at Uppsala University

F
Fedrik Bondestam is associate professor in Sociology at Uppsala University and currently the Director of the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research at the University of Gothenburg. His research covers organizational change in higher education and research, feminist pedagogy, gender-based violence and sexual harassment, risk and masculinities, and gender mainstreaming in theory and practice. As senior research leader at the Center for Gender Research, Uppsala University, he developed pioneering gender perspectives on the management, governance and organization of higher education. Fredrik has also managed government assignments on gender mainstreaming in Sweden during 2013-2017 and currently participates in several EU funded Horizon 2020 projects targeting preventive measures on gender-based violence and harassment in ERA (UniSAFE, GENDERACTION Plus).

Claudia Schredl

Scientific associate at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences
C
Claudia Schredl is scientific associate at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, working in the EU-funded project UniSAFE (2021-2024, Horizon 2020). Her research interests cover gender equality policy in higher education, gender-based violence in academia, feminist institutionalism, and institutional change in universities and research organisations. She is also a doctoral candidate at the Paderborn University, Department of Sociology, writing her dissertation on “The Pitfalls of Essentialism for Gender Change in STEM Universities”.

Vilana Pilinkaite

Research fellow in the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences
V
Vilana Pilinkaite Sotirovic is research fellow in the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences. She completed her PhD in Central European University in Budapest. She has conducted number of research on quality of gender+ equality policies (QUING Project) and studies on gender mainstreaming in parliaments, domestic violence, and gender-based violence for the European Institute of Gender Equality. Currently she is part of the research team on gender-based violence in research performing organizations under H2020 UNISAFE project.

Where to start? Improving, Implementing and Assessing institutional policies

Jasna Podreka

Assistant professor at the University of Ljubljana

Jasna Poderka is assistant professor at the University of Ljubljana. Jasna’s PhD  comes from the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, where she completed her PhD in 2014 on Violence against women and killing of women by intimate partners in Slovenia. Her research focuses on domestic violence, intimate partner violence, intimate partner homicide, femicide, sexual violence and harassment, and issues related to gender discrimination in society and academia. She has also authored several scientific articles on the topics she addresses. She was a member of the project team that developed the gender equality plan at her home faculty. She was a member of the expert group for the development of the regulations on violence, harassment and abuse at the University of Ljubljana and is a confidant at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana.

Pascale Vielle

Professor – UCLouvain 

Pascale Vielle is professor of Social Law at UCLouvain and a research associate at ULB. Her expertise has developed through an international journey (European University Institute in Florence, University of Geneva, Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes), punctuated by institutional responsibilities (she has worked at the European Commission, the International Labour Organization, and served for 8 years on the High Council of Justice). From 2004 to 2006, she was the first director of the Belgian Institute for Equality between women and men. Her approach to the law combines a critical gender perspective and an institutional interpretation, which she applies to social protection and the governance of social policies from an international and comparative perspective. Her recent research focuses on the future of social protection in the context of ecological transition.

François-Xavier Fievez

Vice-Rector for Social and Student Affairs and professor at the University of Namur

François-Xavier Fievez has been a teacher of English at the University of Namur since 2001. His areas of interests include learner’s autonomy, socio-cognitive approaches to learning foreign languages and narrative practices as a tool to improve academic achievement. In 2022, he was appointed Vice-Rector for Social and Student Affairs, including the fields of culture and gender policies. His projects include an educational approach to intercultural and gender issues and the recognition of students’ engagement in extra-curricular activities.

Panagiota Polykarpou

Consultant– Yellow Window

Panagiota is a Consultant at Yellow Window Belgium, with a background in Business Management. Her interests center around gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in organisations. Since 2020, she’s been involved in nonprofit initiatives in Cyprus and in 2023, she joined the Executive Academy of Vienna University of Economics and Business for a Professional Master’s in Social Innovation and Management.

Vasia Madesi

Consultant– Yellow Window

Vasia Madesi is a Consultant at Yellow Window and an experienced professional in EU project management, with a specialisation in coordination and support of European Research and Innovation projects. Since 2014, Vasia has participated in the implementation of several research and innovation projects which cover various sectors, including entrepreneurship, innovation and technology with a gender+ and inclusion dimension. She is currently part of the UniSAFE team.

Mutual learning as a means to advance change among umbrella organisations

Francesca Bucci

Policy officer – League of European Research Universities (LERU)

Francesca Bucci is policy officer at the League of European Research Universities (LERU). LERU is a well-established network consisting of 23 members in 12 countries across Europe. The network brings together representatives in a collaborative effort towards policy development and it serves as a platform for mutual learning and the exchange of best practices across many areas. Francesca joined LERU in 2017, and since January 2021 she coordinates the work of the policy groups on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, on Research Careers & HR, and on Doctoral Studies. Francesca holds a master’s degree in Foreign Literature and Languages from the University of Bologna, with a specialisation in Linguistics. Prior to her role at LERU, she worked at the European University Institute, in Florence.

Cristina Gamberi

Research fellow – University of Bologna – The Guild

Cristina Gamberi is research fellow at the University of Bologna where she works to integrate Equity, Inclusion and Diversity activities within Istitutional Communication Strategies and she is also part of the European Master in Women’s and Gender Studies GEMMA at the Dep of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures. She was a visiting fellow at the Universities of Utrecht (NL), Hull, Warwick and Norwich (UK) and holds a PhD in Gender Studies from the University Federico II. Her work ad publications currently focuses on gender studies, contemporary women writers, gender based violence and critical pedagogies.

Since 2004, she has been involved in policies to combat gender-based violence: in 2018, she joined the working group on the Council of Europe of the Istanbul Convention to draft the Report GREVIO on the chapter Prevention and Education.
Since 2016 she has been the coordinator of NoiNo.org, the project supported by Fondazione del Monte di Bologna to prevent gender-based violence in schools through education which has involved more than 20 high-schools, 1350 students and 220 teachers.

Ana Marija Sikirić Simčić

Assistant professor – University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business – UNIGEM

Ana Marija Sikirić Simčić is assistant professor at the Department of Accounting at the Faculty of Economics and Business of University of Rijeka. She has published more than 20 scientific and professional papers as author or co-author. She is the lead researcher of the scientific research projects: “Budgeting Process from the Gender Equality Perspective” and “By shaping gender-responsive policies and budgets towards greater gender equality“. She has introduced a course Economics of Gender at the Faculty of Economics and Business. She is the vice president of the Gender Equality Committee at the University of Rijeka. She has held numerous workshops and participated in roundtables on gender responsive budgeting and menstrual poverty organised by NGOs and local governments.

She’ll be representing UNIGEM (University and Gender Mainstreaming), a multilateral cooperation project implemented by TPO Foundation from Sarajevo together with 19 universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro in the period from 2021 to 2025.

Siobán O’Brien Green

Acting equality officer at the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Office of Trinity College 

Siobán O’Brien Green is acting equality officer. She has worked in government agencies and the non-profit, research and academic sectors for over 25 years. Siobán has worked on multiple national and European multi-country gender-based violence (GBV) research projects and represented Ireland on three EU COST Actions. She has taught, published and presented widely on GBV, FGM, equality, designing and undertaking research with vulnerable populations. Siobán holds a Masters degree from University College Dublin in Social Policy and has a PhD from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Her PhD research explored help and safety seeking by women who have experienced domestic violence during pregnancy in Ireland and has presented on this important study in Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, Austria and Norway. Siobán has contributed to multiple reports and guidelines addressing GBV including the National Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Training Resource Manual (2019), guidelines for family doctors on domestic violence (2022) and contributed to the Study on Familicide & Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews (2023) commissioned by the Irish Department of Justice.

Pathways for change: steps ahead

Marcela Linková

Head of the Centre for Gender and Science, Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Marcela Linková is the head of the Centre for Gender and Science. She is a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences where she directs the Centre for Gender and Science. She has a doctorate in sociology from Charles University in Prague. Her research focuses on sociology of gendered organizations, research careers, governance of research and research assessment from a gender perspective. Marcela also examines the material-discursive practices through which gender equality policies and initiatives are adopted and implemented at the European and Czech country levels. She is the chair of the ERAC Standing Working Group on Gender in Research and Innovation. She is active in developing policy solutions for gender equality in research at the Czech and EU levels. Marcela has been involved in several EU funded projects; most recently, she is the coordinator of Horizon 2020 GENDERACTION project and participates in GE Academy, Gender-SMART and CASPER. She has served on expert and advisory bodies of the European Commission and in the Czech Republic. She is an alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Programme “Women in STEM”.

Lut Mergaert

Research director and senior consultant at Yellow Window
Dr. Lut Mergaert is Research Director and Senior Consultant at Yellow Window (Antwerp, Belgium). She is a recognised gender expert, who has been the Principal Investigator and coordinator of numerous policy support studies on gender equality and has served as expert for the European Commission, the European Institute for Gender Equality, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, UN Women, and others. She holds a PhD in Management Sciences from Radboud University Nijmegen (NL). Gender mainstreaming in research, and the adoption and implementation of gender equality policies more broadly, are her main research interests, on which she has published articles and book chapters. In recent years, she has been involved in several Horizon 2020 projects: as scientific coordinator in the Gender Equality Academy (GE Academy) and as gender expert in the institutional change projects GEECCO, SUPERA, GEARING-Roles, Gender-SMART, as well in the CASPER project that examined the feasibility to establish a European certification scheme on gender equality and in UNISAFE, which researches gender-based violence and sexual harassment in research and academia and develops approaches to combat these practices.

Silvia Rueda Pascual 

Advisory Member in the Cabinet of the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation

Director of the Women and Science Unit, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation

Silvia Rueda Pascual is an Informatics Engineer and PhD in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Valencia. She is currently Advisory Member in the Cabinet of the Minister and Director of the Women and Science Unit in the Ministry of Science and Innovation in Spain.

Between 2022 and 2023 she was Territorial Director in Valencia of the Regional Department of Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society. Until then, she was Professor at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Valencia, where she became the first female director of that department (2015-2021). She has developed her research in three main lines: Virtual Reality and Computer Graphics, Software Engineering and the Digital Gender Gap, participated in a multitude of research, transfer and dissemination projects and contracts and leaded the TADeSP research group, which works to provide advances in human-centered software development.

She has also been responsible for STEM-UV within the Vice-Rector’s Office for Equality, Diversity and Sustainability of the UV, Director of the chair for Digital Gender Gap and coordinator of the Girls4STEM project, aimed at promoting STEM vocations, especially among girls. In 2022 she received the Sapiens Academic Award from the Official College of Computer Engineering of the Valencian Community for her work in favor of gender equality in the STEM-ICT sector

MODERATORS

Panagiota Polykarpou

Consultant– Yellow Window

Panagiota is a Consultant at Yellow Window Belgium, with a background in Business Management. Her interests center around gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in organisations. Since 2020, she’s been involved in nonprofit initiatives in Cyprus and in 2023, she joined the Executive Academy of Vienna University of Economics and Business for a Professional Master’s in Social Innovation and Management.

Colette Schrodi

Communication Manager at ESF (European Science Foundation)

She specialises in formulating communication, dissemination, and exploitation strategies and oversees the organisation’s communication and dissemination activities in EU-funded projects. A significant part of these projects focusses on institutional and structural change, gender equality and inclusivity (UniSAFE, RESISTIRE, and ACCTING) and innovative education methods (OTTER, DocEnhance). Colette holds a Master’s degree in international communication strategies and has worked for over 15 years in various institutional environments, ensuring the visibility of a wide range of projects, raising awareness and engaging stakeholders.

Anke Lipinsky

Senior researcher at GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Department Data and Research on Society.

Anke Lipinsky is senior researcher at GESIS Leibniz-Institute for the Social Sciences, Department Data and Research on Society. She is a specialist in mixed methods. Dr Lipinsky has extensive experiences in the application of qualitative and quantitative social science methods in the field of gender (in)equalities and related topics in higher education and research. Her work focuses on evaluation, monitoring and understanding the effects of policy interventions that aim eradicating inequalities, including in research funding in the European Research Area. Dr Lipinsky is the PI for UniSAFE’s cross-cultural online survey in research performing organisations. She collaborated in multiple EU-funded projects, e.g. INTEGER, GenPORT, GEECCO, UniSAFE and INSPIRE. She served as expert in the European Commission’s expert panels Gendered Innovations 2.0 and Impact Assessment on Structural Change and is a member of the international network of Women in Higher Education Management WHEM.

Marcela Linková

Head of the Centre for Gender and Science, Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences.

Marcela Linková is the head of the Centre for Gender and Science. She is a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences where she directs the Centre for Gender and Science. She has a doctorate in sociology from Charles University in Prague. Her research focuses on sociology of gendered organizations, research careers, governance of research and research assessment from a gender perspective. Marcela also examines the material-discursive practices through which gender equality policies and initiatives are adopted and implemented at the European and Czech country levels. She is the chair of the ERAC Standing Working Group on Gender in Research and Innovation. She is active in developing policy solutions for gender equality in research at the Czech and EU levels. Marcela has been involved in several EU funded projects; most recently, she is the coordinator of Horizon 2020 GENDERACTION project and participates in GE Academy, Gender-SMART and CASPER. She has served on expert and advisory bodies of the European Commission and in the Czech Republic. She is an alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Programme “Women in STEM”.

Siobán O’Brien Green

Acting equality officer – Trinity College Dublin

Siobán O’Brien Green is acting equality officer. She has worked in government agencies and the non-profit, research and academic sectors for over 25 years. Siobán has worked on multiple national and European multi-country gender-based violence (GBV) research projects and represented Ireland on three EU COST Actions. She has taught, published and presented widely on GBV, FGM, equality, designing and undertaking research with vulnerable populations. Siobán holds a Masters degree from University College Dublin in Social Policy and has a PhD from Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Her PhD research explored help and safety seeking by women who have experienced domestic violence during pregnancy in Ireland and has presented on this important study in Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, Austria and Norway. Siobán has contributed to multiple reports and guidelines addressing GBV including the National Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Training Resource Manual (2019), guidelines for family doctors on domestic violence (2022) and contributed to the Study on Familicide & Domestic and Family Violence Death Reviews (2023) commissioned by the Irish Department of Justice.

Matthias Girod

Secretary general of EuroScience

Matthias Girod is the secretary general of EuroScience since 2019. Prior to that he  worked as a policy officer and project manager for the Central European Research Infrastructure Consortium ERIC (CERIC) in Trieste/Italy where he was in charge of international and EU relations as well as EU funded projects.
Matthias holds a degree in Chemistry from the Philipps-University of Marburg/Germany Before he entered the science-policy-society interface. He  also worked as a researcher in the area of nanotechnology at the Federal Institute for Material Research and Testing in Berlin/Germany, and at the Elettra Sincrotrone in Trieste/Italy.