Call for Proposals to promote Gender Equality

Deadline: 29-Feb-24

The European Commission (EC) has announced a call for proposals supporting, advancing and implementing comprehensive policies to promote women’s full enjoyment of rights, gender equality, including work-life balance, equal pay between women and men, women’s empowerment and gender mainstreaming.

Themes and Priorities

Member State governments, local and regional authorities and their associations, social partners (workers or business representatives), labour inspectorates, equality bodies, civil society organisations, in particular women’s rights organisations, and other stakeholders, are invited to submit projects within the following two priorities:
- Tackling the root causes of the gender care gap by promoting a gender-transformative approach and challenging gender stereotypes
  - The European Care Strategy highlights the importance of affordable, accessible and high-quality care services, with a view to enhancing women’s labour market participation and gender equality and encouraging sustainable working conditions of those in care jobs, so far predominantly women.
  - The aim of this priority is to support:
    - Promotion of family-friendly practices in companies encouraging the take up of the new rights under the Work-life Balance Directive by both women and men (including family leaves, new ways of work organisation, telework and hybrid working, flexibility of hours, shorter working week, job sharing);
    - Prevention and protection against any form of unfavourable treatment and discrimination of women during and after pregnancy as well as of women and men who took family leave (maternity/paternity/parental/carer leave) and flexible work arrangements;
    - Raising awareness of the value of care work by reflecting on the appreciation of skills needed for care work, including soft skills, the intensity of the work and other aspects of working conditions in care jobs;
  - Indicative budget: 4 EUR million
- Supporting the implementation of the provisions of the Pay Transparency Directive
  - The aim of this priority is to support Member States authorities responsible for implementation of the provision of the Pay Transparency Directive (possibly in cooperation with other entities such as other public entities, private organisations or international organisations which can apply as co-applicants) in developing national guidance and/or tools for gender-sensitive job evaluation and classification systems and in raising awareness of this guidance and/or tools among employers and workers representatives in their respective countries.
  - In line with the Gender Equality Strategy and to address the root causes of the gender pay gap, the new Directive 2023/970 aims to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay between men and women for equal work or work of equal value through pay transparency and enforcement mechanisms. The Directive seeks at better enforcing the right to equal pay and to make it easier to detect structural pay gaps and discrimination based on sex.
  - Indicative budget: 6,1 EUR million

Funding Information

The available call budget is EUR 10,100,000.
Project budget (maximum grant amount) cannot be lower than EUR 100,000 in both priorities.
The grant awarded may be lower than the amount requested.

Duration

Projects should normally range between 12 and 24 months.
Extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment.

Expected Impact

Tackling the root causes of the gender care gap through a gender-transformative approach and challenging gender stereotypes
- Improved knowledge of the gender care gap and of ways to tackle gender stereotypes with regard to care and work;
- Improved knowledge and awareness of potential hindrances to gender equality, including obstacles to equal sharing of care and domestic work, and to obstacles to take up of family leaves and family friendly working time arrangements;
- Increased awareness of policy measures and good practice examples that are leading to more gender equality in the workplace as well as more worklife balance for both working women and men throughout the life course, as well a good practice examples by companies and authorities.
Supporting the implementation of the provisions of the Pay Transparency Directive
- Establishment of gender-sensitive tools and methods for transparent pay systems and detection of direct or indirect pay discrimination based on sex related to the undervaluation of jobs typically done by women and correction;
- Increased awareness of gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems’ purpose and benefit;
- Increased knowledge and expertise to negotiate on equal pay and use of gender-neutral job classification systems.

Activities

Tackling the root causes of the gender care gap through a gender-transformative approach and challenging gender stereotypes
- Design of new approaches to encourage a dual earner dual carer model and to tackle gender stereotypes;
- Capacity building and training, including of human resource managers, representatives of public authorities, social partners and other concerned stakeholders including from civil society organisations;
- Mutual learning, exchange of good practices, cooperation between different actors;
- Dissemination of information and awareness raising, including via social media or press campaigns.
Supporting the implementation of the provisions of the Pay Transparency Directive
- Development of guidance, tools, and checklists for the assessment and comparison of equal pay for equal work or work of equal value within the same employer, including the implementation of gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems, for the use of public and private employers and more generally social partners in the context of collective bargaining;
- Development and conduct of training programmes to build capacity of employers and social partners in assessing equal pay for equal work or work of equal value and implement gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems;
- Promotion of gender-neutral job evaluation and classification systems;
- Monitoring implementation of the concept of work of equal value via the assessment of existing job evaluation systems and pay classification schemes by employers and those used by social partners and recommendation for amendment when necessary to comply with equal pay principle and gender-neutral criteria.

Eligibility Criteria

In order to be eligible under the first priority (Tackling the root causes of the gender care gap through a gender-transformative approach and challenging gender stereotypes) grant applications must comply with all the following criteria:
- The applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
  - be legal entities (public or private bodies);
  - be international organisation or be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
    - EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    - non-EU countries:
      - countries associated to the CERV Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature
  - Organisations which are profit-oriented may apply only in partnership with public entities or private non-profit organisations;
- Activities must take place in any of the eligible countries;
- The maximum duration of the action is 24 months;
- The EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 100 000;
- The project can be either national or transnational;
- The application must involve at least two applicants (lead applicant and at least one co-applicant not being affiliated entity or associated partner).
To be eligible under the second priority (Supporting the implementation of the provisions of the Pay Transparency Directive), grant applications must comply with all the following criteria:
- Lead applicants must be EU national authorities responsible for implementation of the provisions of the Pay Transparency Directive (e.g. responsible Ministry or national agency); with only one application per Member State being accepted;
- Co-applicants (if any) must be international organisation or public entities or private organisations, formally established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
  - EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
  - non-EU countries:
    - countries associated to the CERV Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature
- Activities must take place in any of the eligible countries;
- The maximum duration of the action is 24 months;
- The EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 100 000;
- The project can be either national or transnational;
- The application may involve one or more organisations (lead applicant and co-applicants).

For more information, visit European Commission.