Gender equality is a fundamental value of the European Union. However, the research and innovation (R&I) sector remains marked by a persistent imbalance: women still account for less than a third of researchers in Europe [1].
In this article, find out how to integrate the gender dimension into your Horizon Europe projects in a concrete and effective way.
Gender equality: a lever of excellence for European research and your own projects
Gender equality is a real lever for excellence in research and innovation, mobilising all available talent and diversifying perspectives within scientific teams. More inclusive research environments foster creativity, innovation and methodological quality, limiting cognitive and organisational biases that may appear in homogeneous teams.
In addition, gender mainstreaming in research content improves the relevance and robustness of scientific results. Taking into account the differences and specific needs of women and men, projects produce knowledge, technologies and innovations better adapted to the diversity of society, be it health, mobility, energy or digital.
Finally, promoting gender equality contributes to making the R&I sector more attractive, fair and sustainable, strengthening citizens’ trust in science and ensuring a better match between research priorities and current societal challenges.
Equality is therefore not a mere parameter but an essential condition for moving towards effective and inclusive European R&I. Thus, since 2022 and the integration of the Gender Equality Plan (GEP) as a condition of eligibility* for Horizon Europe funding, the EU has been transforming European R&I projects into powerful drivers of change, capable of achieving gender equality as close as possible to researchers and citizens.
* The Gender Equality Plan is a document describing the institutional/cultural actions and changes your organisation is putting in place to promote gender equality. The existence of a GEP is an eligibility criterion for public bodies, public and private higher education institutions, as well as public and private research organisations from Member States and associated countries.
The gender dimension in Horizon Europe applications
There are several sections where the gender dimension is important when writting a Horizon Europe grant application to Horizon Europe.
Administrative (Part A)
When preparing a project application, any public entity must make a ‘self-declaration’ via a questionnaire stating that it has (or will have) a GEP in place.
Euronovia’s tips: it is possible that your institution already has a GEP, contact your human resources directorate (or equivalent).
Your research content (Part B)
In Part B of the proposal, a paragraph in Section 1-Excellence should be dedicated to gender. Depending on the nature and objective of your project, you will need to explain how gender is integrated into your proposal and how it will be managed (e.g., potential influence of sex or gender in a clinical study, on the phenomena studied, users, impacts or methodological risks). Be careful, even the gender dimension is irrelevant to your research, a brief but explicit justification must be given, in line with Horizon Europe’s expectations.
Euronovia’s tips : Be careful not to confuse “sex” with “gender” (see definitions below). If gender is important in the objectives and implementation of your project, you can create a specific task in the Work Package Management (e.g., “Monitoring of gender balance and gender dimension”), a dedicated performance indicator (KPI) and/or deliverable such as the “Gender monitoring report”.
Members of your team (Part B)
Gender mainstreaming must also appear in section 3.2 of the Part B ‘Capacity of participants and consortium as a whole’. In this paragraph, you will need to describe the place and involvement of women and non-binary people in the project (project coordinator, work package manager, future recruitments, etc.) and demonstrate with figures that the consortium achieves or seeks to achieve gender equality.
Euronovia’s tips: Don’t skip this! This aspect makes the difference during the evaluation. Between two projects with the same score, the dividing criterion lies in gender parity or balance in the project team (including the ‘researchers involved’ list in Part A).
Definitions
Sex: It is mainly related to physical and physiological characteristics, e.g., chromosomes, gene expression, hormone levels and anatomy of the reproductive system. Sex is generally described in binary terms, “woman” or “man.”
Gender: Refers to the social construction of women and men, of femininity and masculinity, which varies in time and place, and across cultures.
[1] Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (European Commission). (2025). She figures 2024, Gender in research and innovation : statistics and indicators. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c246671a-78b6-11f0-9af8-01aa75ed71a1
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