Alexandru Dinu is Project Expert at The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI), a public body of the Central Administration under the ultimate authority of the Ministry of National Education (MEN) in Romania. The mission of UEFISCDI is to promote quality and leadership for higher education,research, development and innovation.

Alexandru Dinu has been involved in implementing projects funded by national and European sources, focusing on innovation and gender equality in research. He was responsible for developing and implementing the Gender Equality Plan (GEP) at UEFISCDI (www.gep.uefiscdi.ro) within the CALIPER project(www.caliper-project.eu) . This involved coordinating the GEP and contributing to knowledge transfer beyond academia.

Within the Genderactionplus project (www.genderaction.eu), he led the capacity-building work package focused on gender equality in research for consortium partners.

In Accelerate Romania project (www.accelerate.gov.ro) he contributed to analyzing the current state of the Romanian innovation entrepreneurial ecosystem. He examined best practice models from similar platforms in Europe and worldwide, developed the Accelerate Romania platform concept, collected and processed data, and maintained the platform with updated information.

He is currently enrolled in PhD in Management in National School of Political Studies and Public Administration in Romania (since 2023) wit the thesis: „Promoting Inclusive Research: Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, Responsible Management, and Intersectional Perspectives“. He graduated the Master studies in Political Communication and Political Journalism at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication Sciences, University of Bucharest, Romania ( 2020 – 2023) with Master Thesis: „Sexual Education: A Battleground in Anti-Gender Campaigns in Romania“.

Kateřina Svíčková has more than 15 years of experience in the European Commission where she has worked on policy development, implementation, analysis and design in various areas such as security, knowledge for policy, rule of law and gender equality. In her current role as Head of Sector for Gender in the Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Innovation, she steers the development and implementation of policies aiming to achieve gender equality in research and innovation in the European Research Area.

European Commission: Head of Sector – Gender

DG Research & Innovation / Unit Democracy, Equality & Culture

is the President of the National Council for Combating Discrimination from Romania since 2002 where he takes care of the legal representation of the Council, analyzes petitions and complaints and adopts the necessary measures. He is a Hungarian lawyer and politician from Romania in the position of State Counsellor in Vice Prime Minister’s Cabinet in Romanian Government dealing with legal advice, prevention and combating discrimination and protection of national minorities. He has a PhD title of Doctor in the legal regime of citizenship in public international law at University of Bucharest, Faculty of Law.

Head of mentoring programs for women in science

Chair of European Mentoring Network eument-net

Ekaterina Masetkina M.A. is passionate about empowering of female early career researchers and is in charge of several mentoring programs for women in science at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (HHUD). Under her supervision, four various mentoring groups for different academic target groups are regularly running at HHUD: for female doctoral researchers, for medical interns and for advanced postdocs in German language and a special group for international doctoral and early career postdocs Women in Science & Society (WISS) in English language: https://mentoring.hhu.de/en

Ekaterina has a Master of Arts in European Culture and Economy and works in the Central Gender Equality Office of HHUD. She is keen on improving the gender balance at her university and is involved in events enhancing visibility of female researchers. Ekaterina evaluates the mentoring programs and participates systematically at the international conferences on gender equality in high education. Ekaterina is a regular member of the German professional association Forum Mentoring in Science and Gender Consulting Network. Since 2019, Ekaterina has been acting as a chairperson of the professional network of mentoring coordinators eument-net (European Network of Mentoring Programs for the Advancement of Equal Opportunities and Cultural and Institutional Change in Academia and Research https://www.eument-net.eu/).

Central Gender Equality Office of Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf

University Str. 1, 40225 Dusseldorf, Germany

Title: So that priorities don’t just remain on paper: Institutional challenges for the establishment, development and sustainability of mentoring programmes – Czech case

Kateřina Cidlinská, Ph.D. is a researcher in the field of sociology, higher education studies and gender studies. Her research topics are working conditions in academia, academic careers, exits from academic career, gender inequalities in academia and professional identities. She founded and coordinated mentoring program for early-career researchers, presided EUMENT-NET and Czech PhD Students Association. Currently, she provides consultancy services for research and academic institutions in the field of mentoring and support of professional development of early-career researchers.

Title: Meeting the Challenges and Providing the Winning Strategies for Structural Change for Gender Equality

Eileen Drew is the former Director of the Trinity Centre for Gender Equality and Leadership at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland where she lectured in the School of Computer Science and Statistics and the Centre for Gender and Women’s Studies. Her research interests are: gender and the labour market, equality and diversity, work/life balance, family leave policies and gender in entrepreneurship and academic leadership.    Professor Drew played an instrumental role in driving the Athena SWAN initiative in Trinity College, following the successful completion of the INstitutional Transformation for Effecting Gender Equality (INTEGER) Project in June 2015. She was Coordinator of the Systemic Action for Gender Equality (SAGE) Horizon 2020 Project, 2016-2019. She is the author of numerous academic works. Her latest book The Gender Sensitive University: A contradiction in terms was published by Routledge in 2021.

Harrasment in higher education: an endemic problem?

As a graduate of the Babes Bolyai Faculty of Law in Cluj Napoca, Claudia Cristina Berghezan-Gyarmath holds a PhD in Law, Faculty of Law from the University of Salamanca, Spain, with the theme The principle of equality and non-discrimination in labor law in the European Union.

Currently she holds the leadership and coordination of the Professional Association of Experts in Equal Oportunities in Romania and she is a Trainer of the course Expert in Equal Opportunities.

Through her activity as a Counselor in Equal Opportunities and Psychological Harassment at Work she promotes a positive policy that inspires and supports both the organizations/ institutions and the employees/students/teachers in developing a common source of productivity based on equality, tolerance or any form of discrimination or violence and diversity.

With a great power of adaptation, she can easily face different challenges, accumulating during the years of work and research.Testimony is her research work, found both in her book published in Salamanca, Spain, entitled The Treaty of Amsterdam and equal opportunities in the labor market in the European Union, and in articles written in the field of equality and non-discrimination.

She strongly believes in creating a management system based on tolerance, respect, diversity and the inclusion of all internal and external factors, which, implemented with positive information and education measures can increase the level of performance of any organization/ university/ institution.

Ramona MIHAILA is the Head of the Secretary of State’s Office at the National Agency for Equal Opportunities between Women and Men, within the Ministry of Family, Youth, and Equal Opportunities, Romanian Government. She is also professor Ph.D. at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University, Bucharest, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on women’s writing, gender studies, literature, urban cultures.

She is the author and (co)-editor of 25 books concerning women’s writing, gender studies, narrative strategies. She has attended over 250 conferences and published the delivered articles in international data bases indexed journals.

She has been visiting professor at Arizona State University, research fellow for international institutions: Library of Congress, Washington, Chawton House Library and University of Southampton, Huygens Royal Institute, The Hague, National Library of Vienna, and grants recipient for conference participations.

Besides being a EURAXESS Expert (European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers) and evaluator on gender studies for European Commission, Brussels, Ramona Mihaila has been coordinator and member of European projects on gender studies, women’s writing, literary urban places, social placemaking.

She serves as the executive publishing editor of Journal of Research in Gender Studies, Addleton Academic Publishers, New York.

Women’s Department Representative and Coordinator (ADVU).

Member of international Women’s Association (IWA).

Aynur Gürsoy currently holds the leadership and coordination of the women’s department at the Dialogue and Universal Values Association, while also actively participating in various other associations. She effectively organizes dialogue activities focusing on universal values and shared experiences. Through various initiatives such as training seminars, mentorship programs, leadership courses, vocational training projects, and community engagement activities, she is dedicated to supporting the education and empowerment of women and young girls. Her ultimate goal is to encourage the exploration and empowerment of the potential of women and young girls. Additionally, she endeavors to mobilize volunteers to provide educational support to disadvantaged children.

Laura Grünberg  http://unibuc.academia.edu/LauraGrunberg

(work email: )

Laura Grünberg is Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, University of Bucharest, Romania, and the coordinator of the Gender Equality Plan at this university. She is also editor in chief of the  Romanian Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies (www.analize-journal.ro) and writer (Member of National Writer Union).

She has worked in the past as project coordinator and gender focal point for the UNESCO European Center for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) and has long term experience in initiating, coordinating, offering consultancy, implementing or evaluating national, regional and European research projects in the area of education, health, media, politics, urban space, civil society. She has published books and academic articles in international peer-reviewed journals. She coordinated the most recent Gender Barometer in Romania (2018).