The three-years project XENIA: He Inclusiveness Index, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, Key Action 3, has been officially presented in Naples (Italy) on 16th and 17th January.
XENIA is implemented by a Consortium of 7 Partners from 5 European countries (Italy, Ireland, Slovenia, Greece and Spain). Xenia will develop an innovative and integrated tool that will support European higher education institutions -HEIs- in evaluating the actual level of inclusiveness of their environment and in identifying any efforts that can be placed to best address the needs of sexual and gender marginalized groups and ensure the protection of their fundamental rights and academic opportunities.
At the meeting, Partners jumpstarted Project implementation planning the activities of Work Package 1 to define a common methodology and identify the thematic areas and indicators for the Index, the tool to enhance HEIs’ inclusiveness and to equip them with Tools, Case studies/Policies and Best Practices to combat gender and sexual orientation stigma and exclusion. Then, Partners outlined the details of Evaluation and Quality Assurance activities.
The Kick-Off Meeting also represented a great opportunity for Partners to agree upon the web domain, the project logo and web design in order to foster Project visibility and exploitation and to launch dissemination activities, with both online and offline means to reach almost 3 million of people, the total amount expected over the three years of the project.
