Erasmus University – Rotterdam, Netherlands
The activities that this office has carried out (in the last two years) with regard to equal access/inclusion/diversity are:
• support and counselling for students and university staff;
• lectures, workshops, seminars for students, faculty and non-teaching staff;
• training courses for peer educators;
• Public promotion (e.g. production of media content such as podcasts),
• Fundraising events,
• Other: Launching a soft land project for new students;
• Other: Launching an outreach program for students in primary and secondary school;
• Other: Hiring an Human resources expert focused on the implementation of inclusive HR policies and inclusive training;
• Other: Hiring an inclusive education specialist, an expert on inclusive communications, a policy adviser on EU and IDEA topics, a project lead for student engagement (also related to introductory week, bachelor open days etc) and two researchers for a more inclusive research.
The activity with the greatest impact was the Beyond 25/25 programme: Towards Inclusive Academia (support and counselling for university staff, namely female professors). This programme is open for all assistant and associate professors at EUR who recognize themselves as part of a structurally underrepresented group (gender, nationality, migration/ethnic minority background) and are aspiring to make a promotion to associate or full professors within 1-3 years. The goal was to have 25% of female professors by 2025. However, in 2022 we achieved this goal and established a new goal of having 35% of female professors by 2025. With this programme, participants have access to workshops, mentoring, portfolio preparations, confidential advice by an independent committee and financial support.
The last innovative practise/tool you introduced when it comes to ensuring inclusion, diversity and equal access was the hiring of a person to design a new practice on soft landing for newcomers. Soft-Landing project is set to identify and remove formal and informal barriers that diverse student groups can face when they start with their first bachelor study year. The project aims to gather, share, and develop best onboarding practices across the different university levels – from central services to faculty and student association activities – to give diverse student groups equal opportunities for personal and professional development from their first day at EUR. At university level, we implemented on the ground floor of each education building All Gender Toilets. These toilets are mostly designed for gender non confirming people, carers and families accompanied by children with different genders than their guardians.
In addition to activities to support inclusion, EUR implements measures/activities to counter exclusionary and discriminatory practices through binding policy (legislation), recommendations/guidelines, a strategy/action plan, through the implementation of a central point for unwanted behaviour (for the whole institution) and through regular internal assessments. These assessments happen by IDEA center’s own initiative or by request of a particular colleague or department/unit. Within these assessments, IDEA Center analyzes, evaluates and issues recommendations on practices/trainings and measures at university level.

IDEA Center (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access Center)
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
IDEA-net: Expanding the network of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access (IDEA) practitioners in higher education through institutional capacity building
Project ref: 2022-1-NL01-KA220-HED-000089789

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