Project description
Promoting gender parity through innovative initiatives in the textiles and clothing sector
Gender equity in mainstream economic sectors can be effectively achieved through the creation of an integrated and robust ecosystem where the opportunities of women are enhanced. The EU-funded shemakes.eu project aims to permanently improve the opportunity structures within the textiles and clothing sector in Europe and promote, highlight and celebrate the leading role of women in innovation. The project will address to various age groups, local communities and businesses. It will blend the approaches of a new textile academy where textiles, digital fabrication and biology meet with those of a multi-faceted business ecosystem that focuses on building alternative, circular and sustainable paths to over-production and diminishing value.
Objective
Bridging the gender gap, in its mature phase, means moving through collaboration in scientific sectors towards innovation in business sectors. Shemakes.eu blends the approaches of two leading innovation ecosystems – Fabricademy (https://textile-academy.org/) and TCBL (https://tcbl.eu/) - within the textiles and clothing sector and acts to promote, highlight and celebrate the leading role of women in innovation, with the goal of permanently re-shaping the opportunity structures of at least 16 European Member States and Associated Countries.
To carry out this goal, shemakes.eu develops an integrated innovation ecosystem promoting gender parity along three strategic axes:
- Learning Paths, modelled on the Fabricademy curricula, engage girls and women innovators belonging to three age groups.
- Innovation Services, based on the TCBL Lab Service model, engage local communities and businesses in collaborative innovation activities as well as carrying out networked multi-Lab innovation projects and validating new business concepts.
- Reputation Management promotes different types of role models within the community of the girls and women leading the way in the sector’s transformation.
These activities are accompanied by four transversal WPs – Opportunity Ecosystem, Evaluation and Impact Assessment, Communication and Dissemination, and Project Management - that ensure their coherence in working towards the overall objectives.
Shemakes.eu is a two-year initiative with a consortium of 10 partners in 7 countries, led by the service company of the TCBL network; its activities expand from a first set of 6 core Labs to incorporate 12 ‘transfer’ Labs in a second phase of implementation. Sustainability is ensured by incorporation of the new learning and service modules into the two pre-existing Fabricademy and TCBL networks, with the diffused uptake of shemakes.eu results driving impact towards enhanced roles and improved opportunities for women in mainstream economic sectors.
Keywords
Programme(s)
- H2020-EU.5. - SCIENCE WITH AND FOR SOCIETY Main Programme
Funding Scheme
CSA - Coordination and support actionCoordinator
75017 PARIS
France
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.