Clusters’ gender equality awareness growing

At the recent regional stakeholders meeting, organized at the end of October 2023, the clusters in the region Emilia-Romagna confirmed their interest and desire to be active in gender equality. This demonstrated an increase in awareness and in the willingness to undertake actions directly and addressed to businesses and other members.

The road to spreading a corporate and organizational culture based on gender equality and diversity in terms of innovation is still under construction, but some promising steps are being taken. The identification and exchange of both regional and interregional good practices is contributing to increasing knowledge and ideas for a potential domino effect in the replicability of virtuous practices.

Work-life balance, greater presence of women in governance and on management boards, gender equality in male-dominated sectors such as aerospace are among the topics of greatest interest for clusters. Furthermore, thanks to ART-ER’s good practice Gender Equality Manifesto, based on the process of elaboration and implementation of the Gender Equality Plan (GEP) with attention to both, the territory and the regional innovation ecosystem, some clusters are evaluating the creation of their own GEP or, at a minimum, guidelines.