Equality & Diversity
Working Group
Chair: Siobán O’Brien Green
Dr Siobán O’Brien Green works as the Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), in Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, Ireland. Siobán is responsible for leading and coordinating Trinity’s EDI work areas and Office. Siobán has worked on multiple national and European multi-country gender-based violence (GBV) and equality research projects and has taught, delivered training, published and presented widely on these issues.
Vice-Chair: Iveta Bayerová
Working Group Focus
The ED WG aims at working with and providing support to CG Universities in the areas of inclusive education and leadership, equality between men and women, diversity and intersectionality.
Equality and inclusion are of crucial importance in facilitating long-term improvement of the quality and excellence in research and innovation, and for that reason, the ED WG continues to focus its primary attention and activities in this direction. As global challenges and threats affect all humanity and answers must be increasingly sought together, equality and diversity become increasingly entangled concepts.
The ED WG’s secondary focus is on promoting the incorporation of equality and diversity into pedagogical practices, collaborative research projects and institutional measures across the CG. In the next 3 years, the ED WG will continue to hold and improve regular WG meetings as an essential mode of sharing good practices and jointly thinking through the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) agenda in the CG institutions in international and EU contexts.
The main tasks of the ED WG in the upcoming three years are the following:
- to open up ED WG’s debates and initiatives to all CG universities and the European University Alliances by sharing workshops, webinars and advocacy initiatives on urgent questions of antiracist and antisexist education, as well as collaborative work towards non-discrimination in academia;
- to embrace the challenge of facing and digging into the digital domain, looking at Artificial Intelligence in relations to questions of ethics and social justice;
- to continue serving as an EDI advisory body for the leaderships of our respective universities in the area of diversity, inclusion and intersectional policies and practices;
- to continue participating in the Commission’s sub-group of experts on ‘Inclusive Gender Equality in the European Research Area’ (ERA Policy Agenda Action 5).
Priorities for 2025–2026
- Advocating for academic freedoms and the democratic values of EDI in Europe and in light of current global developments.
- Collaborating with other CG Working Groups to understand and govern the impact of AI on universities, particularly as regards teaching.
- Focus on AI digital domain and social justice.
- Providing input to the European Commission’s consultations on documents and policies concerning EDI in academia, research and innovation.
- Focusing on sexism and racism from an intersectional perspective in all ED WG activities.
Recent highlights since June 2024
- Peer-review workshop for the forthcoming ED WG book “Why EDI Matters – Equ(al)ity, Diversity and Inclusion in European Universities”, 23-24 April, Charles University.
- Webinar “AI Ethics and Governance” with Dr Francesca Rossi, IBM fellow and the IBM AI Ethics Global Leader, 13 March 2025 (link to replay).
- Call for papers “Why EDI Matters: Equ(al)ity, Diversity and Inclusion in European Universities”, December 2024 (link).
Ongoing/forthcoming activities 2025-2026
- Publication of the ED WG collective volume “Why EDI Matters: Equ(al)ity, Diversity and Inclusion in European Universities” [Fall 2025], followed by presentations and dissemination of the volume in and outside the CG community [in Brussels, Spring 2026; at the CG Annual Conference in Granada, June 2026].
- Webinar on “Feminist digital justice”, with guest keynote speaker [Spring 2026].
- Collaboration with CG WGs on the topics of EDI in AI + sharing our collaborative work in the CG community
- Representing the Coimbra Group network in the Subgroup on Inclusive Gender Equality of the European Research Area Forum.
Contact person at the CG Office: Emmanuelle Gardan (gardan@coimbra-group.eu)
