Abstract:

The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) principles are topics widely discussed and researched in the Higher Education (HE) environment in numerous aspects and with variant approaches and methods. The european co-funded project "XENIA: Higher Education Inclusiveness Index" addressed the gender and sexual orientation discrimination challenge faced in and from european HEIs on the basis that, while often specific Policies and Programs exist to tackle the social and educational integration of other groups at risk of exclusion, such as migrants, ethnic minorities and/ or people with disabilities, there had not been identified, at the time, specific tools nor mechanisms to systematically cope with the phenomena of gender and LGBT+ exclusion and on promoting dynamics of social and educational inclusion of women and LGBT+ people/ groups.

In the present paper the main outcomes of the XENIA project are being presented. The project aimed and delivered on supporting the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to become inclusive learning, teaching and working environments for women and LGBT+ students and staff through the development of tools and mechanisms that promote actions to contrast and prevent discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual orientation stigma, and which can enchance them to turn into safe harbours of social and educational inclusion. As inclusive HEIs are considered those Universities of which the practices in action (administrative, educational, students’ support services, etc.) promote and ensure the active participation of all students and staff based on the EDI principles targeting and managing to promote social cohesion, educational inclusion and active citizenship.

The project’s main outcomes included the:
- XENIA Inclusiveness Index, an instrument that allows Universities to gauge and assess their inclusiveness in the domain of discrimination and exclusion on the basis of gender and sexual orientation. The Index was not designed as a statistical index, but rather as an operational tool to support HEIs to measure, realize and value the relevance and efficacy of their diversity and inclusion Policies and Programs.
- Mainstreaming Guidelines and Operational Manual that the DAISSy Research Group of Hellenic Open University (HOU), with the inputs from the results of the piloting of the XENIA index by all partners, developed in order to promote the mainstreaming and uptake of the XENIA Inclusiveness Index from other HEIs across the Erasmus Plus area, and
- A set of Policy Recommendations, that stemmed from the results of the XENIA Index pilot implementation and have been also developed by the DAISSy Research Group of HOU in order to provide valuable evidence, insight and data for policy makers and HEIs to inform and influence formulation, design and implementation of more effective Policies, Programmes and initiatives to promote inclusion in the tertiary education.

In this paper, the two latter outcomes are being presented in order to further open up the discussion on ways and tools to support a solid framework on enhancing the EDI principles in education in order to transform HEIs into trully safe places for women and LGBT+ students and staff, allowing them to take full advantage of equal opportunities for their career and social development.

Keywords:

Equality, diversity, inclusion, Higher education, gender, LGBT+.