CASPER focused on achieving the three specific objectives by:
1/ The analysis of the main EU policy frameworks concerning quality and excellence in research and education including synergies, windows of opportunity for integrating a gender perspective, as well as potential tensions. The results were compiled in Deliverable 3.1.
2/ The development of an extensive two-stage mapping exercise for taking stock of existing gender-related or other relevant award/certification schemes in higher education and in private organisations. The results were compiled in Deliverable 3.3.
3/ The assessment of existing national systems through the collection of the needs, opinions and expectations of relevant EU/international and national stakeholders involved in the promotion of gender equality. Results were synthesised to provide an understanding of existing CAS covered in the interviews, and offer a nuanced account of the debates around the different key parameters of the architecture of a Europe-wide scheme. This empirical material was used to inform the distillation of key prerequisites, compiled in Deliverable 4.3.
4/ The development of the CASPER scenarios through the organisation of 10 co-creation workshops. Two online fora and three additional workshops with specific target groups were organised to discuss the feasibility of these scenarios, leading to a proposal for four (three plus a fourth no-action) fined-tuned scheme scenarios.
5/ The validation the scenarios by interviewing the stakeholders already involved in the assessment of existing schemes and expert members of the project’s advisory board. The validated scenarios were tested through a walk-through methodology in different geographic, scientific and institutional contexts (10 test organisations). The results are available in Deliverable 6.1 which present the final version of the four scenarios.
6/ The development of a set of cross-cutting and scheme-specific policy recommendations directly addressing the European Commission and, indirectly, relevant authorities at the national level. The recommendations identified the basic conditions that need to be created or strengthened to favour an impactful roll-out of the different scenarios, and were published in Deliverable 6.2.
7/ The design and delivery of a benchmarking tool to assess the compatibility of existing CAS with the Horizon Europe requirement on GEPs. Consultations with CAS representatives were carried out, feeding into recommendations on future perspectives of the benchmarking tool in terms of communication, use, update, as a potential instrument that could be used by the EC in any of the CASPER scenarios.
8/ The further development and adaptation of the “Impact driver model”, a tool to assess the progress on gender mainstreaming institutional changes in RPOs with the potential to be used by a CAS. The model was tested in seven RPOs, leading to a further adaptation of the tool, described in Deliverable 5.6.
9/ The communication and dissemination activities served for informing, growing collaborations and stimulating engagement with a wide range of European audiences about the project and mainstreaming gender equality. A stakeholder database was regularly updated, collecting the key stakeholders needed for the potential roll-out of a certification scheme by the EC. The project and its outputs were promoted via regular updates on its website, social media, participation in events, synergies with different sister projects. All public deliverables were uploaded to the CASPER repository in Zenodo.
