Gender-based violence in academic and research workplaces: Pervasiveness in higher education and research performing organisations

Gender-based violence (GBV) at work or study place often falls outside of the mainstream violence research interests. However, it is now well established that violence is far from rare in work and workplaces, in organisations, and for certain occupations. This is all the more so when violence is understood in a broad sense to include harassment, bullying, psychological violence, and further violations, as in feminist conceptualisations of GBV. In this paper, we address GBV in a particular arena which, it would be hoped, would be desig-ned to enhance well-being, safety, knowledge and education: namely, higher education (HE) and research performing organisations (RPOs). Importantly, from our perspective, HE and RPOs are not only educational and research si-tes, but also need to be understood as work, workplace, employment, occupa-tional, organisational, professional and managerial sites. We draw on recent research within the EU funded UniSAFE, a large multi-country research and innovation project on GBV in HE and RPOs. UniSAFE has aimed to provide reliable, comparable data on different forms of gender-based violence in HE and RPOs in order to understand the extent of the problem among staff and students, assess institutional responses, and develop tools to address that problem. The materials include a survey of prevalence and consequences of GBV in HEI and RPOs (n=42 000), in-depth case studies, a strategic mapping of GBV policy and measures in 46 HEI and RPOs , and a mapping of national policy on GBV in HE.