BEYOND BARRIERS
BEYOND BARRIERS: Building Bridges for Equitable Opportunities for Underrepresented and Marginalized Researchers in the European Research Area
Programme: Horizon Europe
Project Number: 101292911 HORIZON-WIDERA-2025-06
Project Duration: 36 months
Project Coordinator: University of Oslo (Norway)
Project Objective
The BEYOND BARRIERS project aims to foster equitable and inclusive research career pathways and contribute to the transformation of the European Research Area (ERA) into an ecosystem where equity, inclusion, and belonging are structurally embedded.
The project is addressing systemic barriers faced by underrepresented and marginalized researchers, including racialised individuals, LGBTQI+ persons, and persons with disabilities, refugees, and displaced persons.
The project applies an intersectional approach and is grounded in contemporary frameworks of social justice, human development, structural violence, and epistemic justice. It seeks to co-design institutional and policy-level interventions to build a more inclusive and barrier-free research ecosystem across 10 European countries, including Ukraine, through evidence-based research, strategic recommendations, educational resources, and the integration of inclusive practices into the work of research institutions.
MSU’s Role
Within the project, MSU will contribute to research on inclusiveness in academic environments, the development of recommendations for equality policies, the creation of educational resources, and the strengthening of institutional diversity and inclusion practices.
Expected Outcomes
The project is expected to reduce inequalities in research careers, strengthen the diversity and resilience of research teams, and reinforce the role of the European Research Area as a global leader in responsible and socially relevant research and innovation.
Project Partners
- University of Oslo (Norway)
- Centre for Social Sciences (Hungary)
- European Citizen Science Association (Germany)
- Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain)
- Migrant Citizen Science Association (Norway)
- Masaryk University (Czech Republic)
- UCLouvain (Belgium)
- Mariupol State University (Ukraine)
- CC Creates Multimedia Production (Philippines)
- INKLUZIO (Czech Republic)
- ALLEA (Germany)
Project Coordinator at MSU:
Nataliia Marakhovska
[email protected]
