“There wasn’t a specific “aha!” moment, but there were many “Let’s do it!” moments” – if we could summarise our Knowledge Exchange Event in Vienna, we would use this phrase, which we've heard at the end, when we were drawing our conclusions.
The Knowledge Exchange Event on 27 September 2024 brought together members of our consortium (who acted as facilitators in the afternoon sessions) and experts from the INSPIRE Knowledge & Support Hubs (or KSHs - each with their respective Communities of Practice). The topic revolved around Intersectionality, understood, as Patrizia Zanoni (Hasselt University) reminded us in her keynote speech, “an understanding of equality that goes beyond one identity axis”. Participants were encouraged to offer concrete examples and share experiences and good practices from their own work, so that they could find ways to translate these into policy, together.
The event kicked off with a welcome speech by Manuel Saxl of the Austrian Ministry of Climate, Innovation and Technology, who introduced the audience to the DIVERSITEC funding line, an initiative designed to boost companies’ diversity efforts.
Rachel Palmén (Open University of Catalonia), INSPIRE Coordinator, held a short presentation on INSPIRE’s mission and key objectives. This was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Jörg Müller and involving experts from the four KSHs, who shared their experiences connected to intersectionality work, while reflecting on the strengths and limitations of each approach.
After a rather talkative lunch, participants were divided into 5 groups, exploring intersectional policies from various angles, such as the pushback faced by practitioners or the differences in local contexts (cultures, mindsets, customs) from one country or region to the other. The conversations were incredibly animated and our participants were curious and thoughtful with one another, creating an ideal knowledge exchange environment.
We are very proud of how the event turned out and the important insights that came out of it and we are already looking forward to our next session.
