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Council of Europe - Gender Equality

From the 1980s onwards, the Council of Europe has played a major role in the development of norms and concepts such as parity democracy, gender budgeting and gender mainstreaming, that have been providing a new approach to gender equality, shaping its development in Europe. 

Main focus of the Council of Europe activities in relation to gender
equality:
- Combating gender stereotypes and sexism;
- Preventing and combating violence against women;
- Guaranteeing the equal access of women to justice;
- Achieving the balanced participation of women and men in political and public
decision-making;
- Promoting gender mainstreaming in all policies and measures in the Council
of Europe.

The Council of Europe Transversal Programme on Gender Equality, launched in 2012, aims to increase the impact and visibility of gender equality standards and to support their implementation in member states. To achieve its aim and advance the gender equality agenda, the Programme builds on the political and financial support of the member states, as well as and on the contribution of all Council of Europe decision-making, advisory and monitoring bodies. The Council of Europe Gender Equality Commission is at the centre of these efforts. Gender Equality Rapporteurs appointed in steering committees and monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe and working on different topics (e.g., education, media, sport, terrorism and corruption) provide standards, innovative policy recommendations and feed into the work and activities of the Gender Equality Commission.

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is an autonomous body of the European Union, established to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all EU policies and the resulting national policies, and the fight against discrimination based on sex, as well as to raise EU citizens’ awareness of gender equality.

European research still shows a pronounced under-representation of women, particularly in the so-called hard sciences and in leadership positions. Gender equality in research is essential not only for fairness, but because it could help address current and future deficits in skilled labour within the EU.

ERA Priority
Gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research: Encouraging gender diversity to foster science excellence and relevance.

In spite of national and EU-level strategies on Gender equality, European research still suffers from a considerable loss and inefficient use of highly skilled women. The annual increase in female researchers is less than half the annual number of female PhD graduates and too few women are in leadership positions or involved in decision-making. In 2005 the Council set a goal for women to be in 25% of leading public sector research positions, but in 2009 only 13% of the heads of higher education institutions were women. The integration of a gender dimension into the design, evaluation and implementation of research is also still too limited. The challenge is to improve on all these points to increase the quality and relevance of research. The Commission is already committed to ensure 40% of the under-represented sex in all its expert groups, panels and committees and will apply this particularly under Horizon 2020.