Reducing gender inequalities

The University's new roadmap to address the challenges of gender inequalities from now and for the next five years was presented in March 2020. It is the Gender Equality Plan 2020-2025, which was created with a participatory approach with numerous groups from across the University's and revolves around the following eight guiding principles:

Integrating the gender perspective in all the University's fields and processes, with a particular focus on how gender creates situations of inequality, designing actions tailored to this perspective and eliminating discrimination.

Generating and transmitting non-androcentric knowledge that promotes equality and does not result in inequalities. This includes designing the contents of courses, degrees, research projects and classroom work.

3Non-discrimination Identifying, preventing and redressing any discrimination based on sex, gender identity or sexual orientation in any context of the University.

Giving everyone equal opportunities and putting in place measures to ensure the effectiveness of that equality; i.e. to make sure it is sustainable and transformative.

5Care perspective Integrating the care perspective at the University; in other words, considering and highlighting the actions required for reproduction, traditionally attributed to women, who have been made invisible and excluded from the job market.

Viewing difference as wealth, and encouraging the use of types of language and narratives that challenge the full complexity of social reality so that everyone can feel represented.

Defending equal rights and freedoms for all people, regardless of gender.

Collecting data to establish how the plan is progressing and identify where improvements need to be made so we can continue moving towards gender equality in every area.

Based on these principles, the University works on around fifty actions, such as the project to include a gender perspective in all education programmes, the project to promote gender equality in entrepreneurship promotion programmes, a specific gender perspective education plan for all University staff members, a project to foster a prominent role as active agents of change for female scientists in traditionally male-dominated fields, or social mentoring and volunteering projects in the field of technology to give girls more competencies in traditionally male-dominated fields.

Mary Beard, Professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, was awarded an honorary doctorate. She is considered Britain's best known specialist in this field thanks to her regular media appearances and her work to make the classics more accessible, bringing ancient Rome to life by portraying the daily lives of the people of the time. In recognition of her academic career, which has made her one of the leading specialists in ancient Roman history, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the UOC in an event presided over by Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau and UOC President Josep A. Planell. Pastora Martínez Samper, Vice President for Globalization and Cooperation, gave the laudatio speech for Professor Beard.

Far from hiding away in the world of academia, Beard has combined her research and teaching activities with her knowledge dissemination skills, successfully connecting with the general public. In addition, she is a committed feminist and the author of Women & Power: A Manifesto (2017), a work that shows how history has treated powerful women and female characters, from Penelope (from Homer's Odyssey) and the goddess Athena of the classical world to present-day figures such as Theresa May and Hillary Clinton. The work also contains personal reflections on sexist and gender violence situations to which she has fallen victim on social media.