Main Objectives

PRO GED intends to reach the following main objectives:

Research, Knowledge Production and Knowledge Circulation

In making knowledge production and knowledge circulation in both research and education its main focal point, PRO GED privileges an innovative, interdisciplinary approach that combines social sciences, the humanities and natural sciences with transcultural competencies. PRO GED aims at overcoming traditional disciplinary boundaries and at developing new, timely and highly relevant perspectives on existing concepts and terminologies through cross-regional, transnational and interdisciplinary dialogue, while promoting research „with” instead of research „on” a region of utmost social and political relevance.

Bridging the Gap between Academia and Society

PRO GED focuses on shared knowledge production and knowledge transfer in order to contribute actively to reducing inequalities based on gender, religion, class, ethnicity and nationality. By promoting and disseminating expertise in the field of gender and diversity, PRO GED aims at academic, as well as practical solution-finding in different institutional settings and methodological contexts, and adds new value by enabling collaborative efforts to bridge gaps between „theory” and „practice”, research and implementation, and, more generally, between academia and society at large. Teaching programmes and trainings will be developed in order to reach out to students and young researchers, but also to non-academic circles engaged in producing and implementing gender and diversity expertise. These programmes will be delineated through subsequent mutual dialogue between the partners in the North and in the South during the COFER.

Network and Institution Building

PRO GED is based on previously established contacts between the Chair for Gender Studies and Islamic Studies at the University of Zurich and the Southern partners in the MENA region (such as the GENiUS Network) as well as on a strong existing network between the Swiss partners that has evolved during the process of institutionalizing gender studies at Swiss Institutions of Higher Education over the last decade and a half (such as the Swiss Association of Gender Studies). Building upon this basis, PRO GED aims at intensifying and concentrating these networks, extending them to new partners, and fostering targeted collaboration between Swiss and Southern partners via shared knowledge production, the collaborative exploration of clearly defined research fields, exchange and mutual learning in institution building and the creation of shared teaching and outreach programmes.