Over the last seven years, GENDER.ED has been a hub for showcasing and promoting excellence in gender and sexualities teaching, research, and knowledge exchange and impact.
In that time, it has supported the design and launch of three pre-honours undergraduate courses, introduced a Postdoctoral Fellowship and hosted nine undergraduate interns and six PhD assistants. It also hands out awards each year for excellence in gender and sexualities studies and commitment to feminist scholarship and change on campus.
Hosted by the University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities (IASH) and powered by the School of Social and Political Science (SPS), GENDER.ED gives academics, students and partners the opportunity to collaborate through a variety of resources and in-person activities and events.
Earlier this semester, staff and students from across the University came together to kick off the new academic year. The winners of the GENDER.ED – EUSA UG Feminist Trailblazers Award and Queer Futures Prize were announced before a recital by award-winning poet, author, and storyteller Nadine Aisha Jassat.
Community
The event is a great example of the sense of community that Director Dr Radhika Govinda says they have created over the last seven years.
Dr Govinda said: “Our members see the hub as a positive force contributing significantly to the University’s academic landscape by fostering a sense of community among gender and sexualities scholars, and raising the profile of gender and sexualities teaching and research within the institution and further afield.”
An extensive events programme, including an Annual Research Showcase, allows members to network, share ideas and discover the breadth of research taking place across the institution.
Dr Govinda particularly mentions “a couple of really exciting projects” GENDER.ED is leading on.
She said: “The first is an oral history project on women’s, gender, feminist and sexualities studies teaching at the University of Edinburgh. It seeks to chronicle and archive the voices of academics who introduced and/or have been instrumental in delivering this teaching – voices which may otherwise remain underrepresented in institutional histories.
“The second is a book project intended as an afterlife for the 16 Days International Blogathon that GENDER.ED organised for six consecutive years in collaboration with the Australian Human Rights Institute at the University of New South Wales and Dr B R Ambedkar University Delhi, and involving academics, activists, artists, development practitioners and students from across the globe in order to raise awareness on the issue of gender-based violence.”
Impact
This impressive range of activities has had a wide-ranging impact on the University, and beyond.
Dr Govinda added: “Our impact also extends beyond the University of Edinburgh. The Gender Sensitive Research Toolkit we have developed to support academics seeking to implement a gender sensitive approach to research projects has attracted interest and praise from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Scottish Funding Council, UK Research and Innovation, and the British Academy, and has been adopted by several Universities, including Glasgow and Bristol.”
Join
If you’d like to get involved in the work of GENDER.ED, they are always looking for more members. Dr Govinda explains: “If you are interested and/or engaged in gender and sexualities studies at the University of Edinburgh and are looking to connect with others who are also similarly interested/engaged, then consider becoming a member – we would love to hear from you!”
“GENDER.ED can and will be only as vibrant and meaningful in achieving its vision and mission of promoting excellence in teaching, research and knowledge exchange in gender and sexualities studies as we make it!”
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