Knowledge available at the right time to the right people

When one needs to find the right information on gender equality in the EU, then EIGE is the place to be. The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) today launched its Resource and Documentation Centre (RDC) with an EU-wide conference in Vilnius in the presence of EU Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science Maire Geoghegan-Quinn and Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy of Bulgaria, Lazar Lazarov. “Our RDC will become the first place to search, to find, to inter-act and to learn about equality between women and men in the European Union” Virginija Langbakk, Director of the Institute.

EIGE collects, processes and makes available data, tools, methods, good practices and resources on gender equality and makes this information available via its RDC. It aims to assist policy makers and practitioners in locating key resources on gender equality. It also facilitates the exchange of knowledge amongst those with an interest in gender equality policy and practice and provides a space to discuss and debate key issues on gender equality.

The long-term objective is to bring together in one place the memory of all gender equality work at EU and Member State level and to make it accessible to all, actively fostering cooperation between gender equality actors across the EU.

EIGE’s Resource and Documentation Centre is built around three main functions:

  1. Online and physical documentation centre : 240,000 gender equality related resources that were, until now, scattered across a multitude of sources throughout the EU;
  2. Knowledge centre: gender equality knowledge produced by the Institute including specialised research and databases;
  3. European network on gender equality - EuroGender: an online collaborative platform where decision makers, experts and other stakeholders can debate gender equality issues and share their expertise and resources.

Knowledge of resources on gender equality is crucial to strengthen the capacity for gender mainstreaming in policies and programs. Access to reliable and comparable gender statistics are universally considered to be important levers for achieving de facto gender equality. The mission of the European Institute for Gender Equality is to be(come) the knowledge centre on gender equality for the European Union and the Member States.

A multitude of gender equality actors exist at EU and Member State level. The vast amount of data, knowledge and resources they produce or process in the field of gender equality are not always easily identified or accessible to decision makers, practitioners, researchers or citizens. The European Institute for Gender Equality has managed to create a single gateway to access this information. For this purpose EIGE teamed up with five documentation centres and libraries specialised in women and gender issues, namely:

  • Amazone - Resource Centre for Equality between Women and Men in Brussels;
  • Atria - institute on gender equality and women’s history in Amsterdam;
  • Cid-femmes et genre - Information and documentation centre for women and gender issues in Luxembourg;
  • Gender Library of the Centre for trans disciplinary Gender Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu BerlinGender Library;
  • KvinnSam - National Resource Library for Gender Studies at Gothenburg University;
  • Kvinfo – The Danish Centre for Research and Information on Gender, Equality and Diversity

The uniqueness of EIGE’s Resource and Documentation Centre is complemented by other important like:

  • Quick and easy access to more than 238 000 resources on gender equality;
  • Multilingual resources (English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish – more languages to follow)

The RDC is available via http://eige.europa.eu/rdc

Press release in .pdf format