Overview

As institutions with a leading role in the generation and dissemination of culture and knowledge, universities are in a prime position to contribute tellingly to change in society. Everyone who works in the university arena therefore ought to feel responsible for all the knowledge we help develop and broaden. However, we are also responsible for the knowledge that, more or less consciously or explicitly, we do not allow to thrive or reach the general public.

Despite our mission being as described above, androcentric practices live on in universities in general and in ours in particular. Evidence of their existence can be found in staff composition, in the male to female ratio in senior positions, in scientific output and in teaching materials.

It is now beyond question that a university must recognise and use all the talents of its entire staff if it is to excel in the fields of research, education and innovation.

The president of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia, UOC) has charged the institution’s Equal Opportunities Committee with promoting measures geared to the entire university community learning to recognise and appreciate gender-based differences, and to endeavour to alter organisational, teaching and research-related practices that prevent the manifestation of such diversity.

In addition to providing access to the UOC’s Gender Equality Plan, this website contains details on the situation of men and women at the University, the institution’s equality-oriented measures and its efforts to introduce a gender perspective, along with a great deal of other relevant information.