EU Award for Gender Equality Champions

The EU Award for Gender Equality Champions aims to

• complement and boost the requirement for higher education and research organisations applying to Horizon Europe to have in place a Gender Equality Plan (GEP) as an eligibility criterion
• be an incentive to advance inclusive gender equality plans and policies in the framework of the new European Research Area (ERA) policy agenda
• act as an enabler for the transformation agenda for universities set in the new ERA, and in line with the new European Strategy for Universities

This prize is also intended to create a community of champions inspiring other academic and research organisations to become gender equality champions themselves, and to raise public awareness of the importance of addressing gender equality in academic and research organisations through institutional change.

Designed by the European Commission (DG Research and Innovation), the prize is managed by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) and its winners are selected by an independent expert jury for each prize category.

See Horizon Europe Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area Work Programme 2023-2025 featuring the 2024 Prize (pp. 161 - 164).

There are 3 prize categories:

1. Sustainable Gender Equality Champions: Organisations that can demonstrate a significant and sustained record of activity and a high level of achievement through the implementation of their GEP.
2. Newcomer Gender Equality Champions: Organisations that have recently finalised the implementation of their first GEP and can demonstrate the most progress achieved through its implementation.
3. Inclusive Gender Equality Champions: Organisations that have developed the most innovative inclusive GEP – i.e. a GEP addressing intersections between gender and at least two other social categories, such as racial or ethnic origin, social origin, sexual orientation and gender identity (LGBTIQ) or disability – and can demonstrate concrete results obtained through its implementation.

Applicants can only apply to one of these three categories and winners from past editions cannot re-apply to another category.

Each winner will receive a trophy and a €100 000 prize.

For the 3rd edition, we will award one winner in the prize category “Sustainable Gender Equality Champions”, two winners in the prize category “Newcomer Gender Equality Champions”, and one winner in the prize category “Inclusive Gender Equality Champions”.

In case there is/are no winner(s) in one or more categories, the corresponding prize amount will be reallocated to the highest-ranking proposal(s) in another category/ies (for more, see the Rules of contest 2024 below).

The prize is open to universities, higher education institutions, and other research performing organisations (public or private), established in an EU Member State or a Third Country associated to Horizon Europe.

Admissibility, eligibility and award criteria are detailed in the Rules of Contest, to be read carefully by all applicants before submitting their application:

Participants can apply for the prize online via the Funding and Tenders Portal as of 4 September until 16 October 2024 at 17:00 CET.

Consult the DO’s and DON’ts for applicants.

The results will be officially announced during an awards ceremony to be held in 2025.

For more information on the next call for application, please contact us at REA-HE-GENDER-CHAMPIONSec [dot] europa [dot] eu

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