Partnership on the European Project SUPPORTER

The Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of the University of Banja Luka is a partner in a new European project named “SecUring sPORTs Education thRough innovative and inclusive Gender Equality Plans” – SUPPORTER, financed through the EU framework programme for research and innovation - Horizon Europe.

It is a project managed by the European Science Foundation/Fondation Europeenne de la Science of France, which started on 19 April 2023, with a meeting of all 11 partners to the project. Among those present were Prof. Adriana Ljubojević, PhD, and Asst. Prof. Kristina Pantelić Babić, PhD, representatives of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of the University of Banja Luka, an official partner in the project, as well as Anđela Pepić, PhD, Head of the Research Development and Support Center at the University of Banja Luka.

This project, running from April 2023 to September 2023, aims to support eight sports higher education institutions from Central and Eastern Europe in developing their own intersectional, innovative, inclusive and impactful Gender Equality Action Plans, explicitly addressing gender-based violence and sexual harassment.

The project aims to identify and document systemic challenges faced by sports higher education institutions in Central and Eastern Europe in advancing gender equality and eradicating gender-based violence, develop activities adapted to the context of those countries and tailored to each partner institution. Moreover, the plan is to strengthen the sports’ institutions organizational capacity to address gender equality with an intersectional approach. The plan is also to foster an inclusive institutional culture by developing mutual-learning processes. Other activities planned include to strengthen networking and exchange among sports institutions and with communities of practice. The aim is also to foster gender-related institutional, sustainable and transformative changes in the sports institutions with a specific attention on the challenge of gender-based violence.

SUPPORTER will strive to include in the processes the wider sports ecosystem and sports organizations from Central and Eastern Europe and beyond, thereby contributing to wider social changes.

In addition to the European Science Foundation and the University of Banja Luka, partners in the consortium are the Göteborg University, The South-East European Research Centre  - a civil non-profit society from Greece, University of Ljubljana, Charles University, National Sports Academy “Vassil Levski” from Bulgaria, Lithuanian Sports University, West University of Timisoara, Georgian State Teaching University of Physical Education and Sport, and Public Institution University of Physical Education and Sports from Moldova.

For more information about the project, please see:

• Webpage: https://supporter-project.eu
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gep-supporter-project/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GEP_SUPPORTER
• Instagram:  @supporterproject
• E-mail: supporter@esf.org; communications@supporter-project.eu