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Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. Cluster 2 aims to strengthen European democratic values, including rule of law and fundamental rights, safeguarding cultural heritage, and promoting socio-economic transformations that contribute to inclusion and growth.
This call aims to support the prevention of of gender-based violence (GBV) in different socio-economic contexts.
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a prevalent issue, with 1 in 3 women in the EU having experienced physical and/or sexual violence, 22% of women in the EU having experienced violence by an intimate partner, and 55% having been sexually harassed. GBV has destructive consequences for individuals, organisations, the economy, and society as a whole. Gender-based violence is violence directed against a person because of that person's gender or violence that affects persons of a particular gender disproportionately. It can be sexual, physical, verbal, psychological, or economic and occur in different forms, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. However, important knowledge gaps remain on the prevalence and impact of gender-based violence across different social and economic areas. For example, in certain sectors, occupations and work arrangements, like night work, healthcare, hospitality, social services, emergency services, transport and education, workers are more exposed to violence and harassment, although comparable, intersectional data is often still lacking in these fields. While the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in domestic violence, still little is known about the impact of the associated rise in teleworking on women’s working conditions, including the safety of their working environment. Moreover, in sports, initial studies on sexual GBV showed that a significant percentage of female athletes in Europe are exposed to sexual harassment, but no comprehensive pan-European data is available on this.
Another research field, which requires further attention is the impact of tech-facilitated GBV, including non-consensual sharing of sexually explicit images, manipulated intimate images (e.g., deepfakes and other forms of generative AI), or child sexual abuse online, as well as the potential positive and negative use and effects of AI on GBV.
Therefore, proposals should look at gender-based violence in one or more of the following areas: 1) GBV in the world of work, 2) GBV in sports 3) GBV on online platforms.
Across these areas, proposals should take into account online and offline forms of gender-based violence, and consider intersecting factors, such as age, socio-economic and migrant background, disability, racial or ethnic origin , religion, geography, as well as gender identity and sexual orientation. Proposals should also address the role of bystanders and superiors in addressing gender-based violence and assess the availability and effectiveness of victim support. For data collection, proposals should make use of surveys, as well as administrative data, where available, to assess how public services respond to the needs of GBV survivors and can foster a safe environment. Where appropriate, proposals should seek the involvement of law enforcement, prosecutors and judges, together with academia/SSH research to optimise input and uptake. For proposals addressing the world of work, the involvement of social partners is encouraged.
Where applicable, proposals should leverage the data and services available through European Research Infrastructures federated under the European Open Science Cloud, as well as data from relevant Data Spaces. Particular efforts should be made to ensure that the data produced in the context of this topic is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable).
The outcomes of this research will be particularly important in view of recent policy developments, including the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention, the EU Directive on Combatting Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, Commission Recommendation on integrated child protection to protect children from all forms of violence, as wells the ILO Convention no.190 on eliminating violence and harassment in the World of Work.
Synergies with projects under the DAPHNE strand of the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme are encouraged. International cooperation is encouraged, in line with the Gender Equality Strategy for External Action (GAPIII).
Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:
To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:
See specifics in the General Annexes document, page 9.
Only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:
The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 10.20 million.
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