This document summarizes the SUPERA project at the Central European University to promote gender equality. It provides details on the university, including its history and policies. It then discusses efforts through the SUPERA project to build on existing policies and implement initiatives to advance gender equality, such as creating the university's first Gender Equality Plan and hiring a Gender Equality Officer. The document also notes challenges to sustainability from high turnover and fatigue, but that gender equality institutions, policies, and expertise are now in place.

1. SUPERA PROJECT: THE CASE OF
THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN
UNIVERSITY
Andrea Krizsán

2. CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY
BUDAPEST/VIENNA
• Private liberal arts (progressive)
• American acredited (+Hungarian/Austrian)
• Graduate (MA-PhD) – BA as of 2020
• Small: less than 2000 students, around 500 permanent employees
• Policies: Equal Opportunity Policy (2014), Policy on Harassment
(2013), Gender Equality in Events (2013)
• Institutional structures: Senate Equal Opportunity Committte, 0.2
FTE Equal Opportunity Officer (2017), Equal Opportunity Website
• Relatively strong policy framework, no implementation

3. FROM EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES TO
GENDER EQUALITY SPECIFICALLY
• Repeated applications
• SUPERA project: 2018-2022
• Building alliances and support
• Generating evidence – Gender Equality Baseline Assesment
Report
• Concerted effort of communication and deliberation (GE website,
FB, AF, Senate, HUB, EOC, SU, CEU website)
• Team of doers
“This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 787829”.

4. ELEMENTS OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION
• CEUs first Gender Equality Plan 2019-2022
• Yearly workplans: WP 2019/20, WP 20/21
• Gender Equality Officer position
• Developing a regular data collection and monitoring system,
• The Gender Equality Hub
• Some of the outstanding policy initiatives: harassment policy,
student parents’ policy, review of promotion policy, policy on
gender balanced faculty hiring

5. OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES
• Political circumstances: attacks on gender equality and gender
studies within wider attacks against CEU and academic freedom
• Leadership and political will – strong allies (Rector, Pro-rector, IRO)
• Changing political context (move to Vienna)
• Context of institutional change and need/demand for
institutional/organizational reform
• Organizational exhaustion before 2020 and in 2020

6. DIFFICULTIES/SUSTAINABILITY/REPLICABILIT
Y
Difficulties:
- Organizational culture not based on transparency and rules but ad-hoc
personalized, often arbitrary decisions (sometimes well intended) – lack of
ranks, paygrades, policies, systematic data
- Huge personnel turnover – discontinuities, wasted efforts to train
- Fatigue
Sustainability:
- institutions, data system, policies in place; awareness and decentralized
expertise to be targeted
- Q: leadership and political will
Replicability: You tell us!