The celebration of Women’s Day is an important annual reminder to reflect on the very real gender-based inequalities that still pervade society at all levels – issues such as the gender pay gap, harmful gendered norms and stereotypes, barriers that prevent women around the world from accessing their rights…
It can often feel that Women’s Day has become a ‘pink washing’ day, an occasion for businesses the world over to ask their staff to wear pink for a performative social media post. At AcrossLimits however, our action and dedication towards the cause of gender equality is constant and year round. We are deeply committed to playing our part in giving women from all walks of life access to the tools, resources and opportunities they need to counterbalance the structural barriers still in place throughout the vast majority of economic sectors. We also practice what we preach – we’re a women-led organisation that uses our lived experiences to help pave the way for others to succeed.For this Women’s Day, we want to highlight some of our work related to gender equality over the past year.
The Women TechEU project
AcrossLimits is honoured to continue our vital role within the Women TechEU project as one of the Core Partners and the lead of the project’s communication and dissemination efforts. The project invests €12 million in equity-free grants, which will support a total of 160 women-led deep tech companies to scale up their company. With a deep commitment to nurturing European talent, our team also applies its expertise in business development and entrepreneurship to enrich the Women TechEU programme of Business Acceleration Services.
Each day, we are inspired by the opportunity to amplify their voices and visions, but our mission extends beyond visibility – it’s about creating a community where women innovators are recognised, supported, and celebrated. This Women’s Day and every day, we celebrate the remarkable achievements of these trailblazers. Together with Women TechEU, we remain dedicated to empowering these extraordinary women, helping them to thrive and succeed in their endeavors.
The third Women TechEU call is currently open until the 17th of March, with a fourth and final call (under this iteration of the project) scheduled for later on this year.
The WINBLUE project
This year will see the close of our 2-year WINBLUE project, an initiative that has implemented a wide-ranging multi-faced approach towards empowering women and reducing gender inequalities in the blue economy. Within the blue economy, the contribution and potential of women remains overlooked and undervalued, especially within roles related to STEM. They face barriers for employment and advancement in many of the blue economy’s male-dominanted sectors. This is a substantial problem that needs to be addressed, not least of which because gender equality is a core EU value and fundamental right, but also because studies conclusively prove that empowering women is an essential condition for an innovative, competitive and thriving European economy.
In the project, AcrossLimits has led the important Strengthen and Consolidate Workpackage, which seeks to invest in the capacity building of organisations and individuals. Over the past year, AcrossLimits and our WINBLUE partners have achieved:
- The co-creation of 5 sectoral Gender Equality Plan models with stakeholder input, available on our website here. These models can be used by organisations in the five WIBLUE-targeted blue economy sectors as templates to create their own gender equality plans;
- The creation and piloting of a training on gender equality for blue economy organisations, which has been implemented across 6 countries over the past few months, and is currently in the process of being finalised for publication;
- The creation and start of the WINBLUE coaching programme, where 30 women working in the blue economy sector have received coaching that focuses on self-empowerment.
We invite you to attend our local networking event for blue economy stakeholders taking place on 12 March, where we will spotlight the work of WINBLUE and give voice to several pioneering women in the sector. Register to attend here: https://forms.gle/Fr3SUNVdP3aCiqUe8
Our updated Gender Equality Plan
This year also saw AcrossLimits invest significant effort to boost our own internal structures when it comes to ensuring a more inclusive workplace. This took the form of updating our Gender Equality Plan and substantially expanding its scope and aim. Our GEP can be publicly accessed on our website here, and we encourage all entities to take the time to establish similar policies. This year’s GEP update involved a thorough status quo analysis of AcrossLimits’ performance when it comes to gender equality, our current and future challenges as a company, and then setting out targeted measurable actions across five thematic areas:
- Work-life balance and an inclusive organisational culture
- Gender balance in leadership and decision-making
- Gender equality in recruitment and career progression
- Integration of gender dimension into research and training content
- Measures against gender-based violence.
The update was followed up by a whole-company training and discussion on the GEP, to ensure that all of us are aware of the new GEP and the equality concepts underpinning it.
The next 2 years will see us working towards achieving the goals we have set out for ourselves, and we are excited to see where this endeavor will take us!
For more information on any of the mentioned projects or our gender equality initiatives, you may contact [email protected].
