Gender Empowerment through Politics In Classrooms (G-EPIC), 2023-2026

This project is funded by the European Commission Horizon programme for 3 million euros with 704,872.35 Euros for U.K. partner (covered by UKRI) with Professor Hoskins as the UK PI. G-EPIC, a multinational consortium of universities and civil society organisations, has been brought together with the aim of fostering social innovation and testing interventions to reduce gender inequality in politics. The 7 partners in 6 countries (Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Spain and United Kingdom) will begin by establishing the state of play through classroom observations and reanalysis of existing quantitative data to understand how inequalities in attitudes and dispositions towards political engagement are learnt. G-EPIC will then create experiments in schools and pilot design-based interventions co-developed with civil-society, teachers and students. These experiments and interventions will be rigorously evaluated in comparisons with control groups and will lead to the development of the Gender Empowerment in Classroom intervention that will be disseminated and delivered in schools across Europe creating the possibility for real change and the reduction of the gender gap in political leadership. In addition, G-EPIC will also carry out a holistic evaluation of the national context and the local and European policy framework to design strategies, regulations and policies that are conducive to a more equitable gender political involvement, particularly of girls with a disadvantaged background.  Professor Hoskins is leading the research on the co-construction and testing of the interventions. Project website: Gender Empowerment Through Politics in the Classroom | G-EPIC