As the EUGENDERING Jean Monnet Chair came to an end in September 2025, Gender Five Plus joins the academic and policy community in celebrating three years of visionary work, dialogue, and knowledge-sharing on gender in the European Union.
Led by Professor Sophie Jacquot, the EUGENDERING Chair at UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles has been a remarkable space of intellectual creativity and civic engagement — one that has brought together researchers, students, policymakers, artists, and civil-society actors from across Europe.
Over the course of its mandate, EUGENDERING has built bridges between scholarship and activism, developing a unique platform to rethink the European project through a gendered lens.
A Rich Landscape of Activities
The Chair’s achievements are as diverse as they are impressive:
- Research seminars exploring state feminism, intersectionality, LGBTI rights, gendered policymaking, and feminist responses to anti-gender movements, featuring renowned scholars such as Amy Mazur, Petra Meier, Maryna Shevtsova, Markus Thiel, and many others.
- Major conferences in Paris and Brussels that examined women’s place in international relations and in the history of European integration.
- Podcast series like EUROĂŻnes and EURADIO, bringing feminist perspectives into public debate and giving voice to women shaping Europe today.
- Public debates and roundtables co-organised with Gender Five Plus and key European partners — from “The Conference on the Future of Europe and Gender” and “European Parliament 2024: Achievements and Prospects for a Feminist Europe,” to “Between the AI Cracks: Can the EU Lead the Way in Shaping an Inclusive Digital Age?”
- Cultural initiatives, including the play Détonantes, celebrating the history of Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome, and educational materials that make women’s contributions to Europe visible.
These activities, publications, and creative outputs — now fully accessible on the EUGENDERING website — form a living archive of feminist scholarship and European engagement.
Teaching, Research, and Creative Dissemination
Beyond events, the EUGENDERING Chair has produced an impressive range of teaching materials, syntheses, and research papers designed to inspire new generations of students and educators.
From Astrid Lulling to Fausta Deshormes La Valle, Bronagh Hinds and many others, the biographical collection highlights the women who have shaped European integration but often remain absent from mainstream narratives.
The research syntheses provide accessible summaries of key debates — from the EU’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention, to gender mainstreaming in Erasmus+, and the role of the FEMM Committee. Among them are several authored by members of Gender Five Plus, including Victoire Olczak’s analyses of the 2024 European Parliament elections and the gendering of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
EUGENDERING also launched an original Model EU Think Tank Series, encouraging students to draft policy papers on issues ranging from migrant women’s rights to reproductive justice and equal pay.
A Partnership of Ideas and Purpose
For Gender Five Plus, it has been both a pleasure and an honour to collaborate with the EUGENDERING Chair throughout these three transformative years. Our joint debates, notably on feminist policymaking and intersectionality in EU institutions, have shown how academic research and feminist advocacy can reinforce one another.
We warmly congratulate Professor Sophie Jacquot, the imaginative and energetic holder of the Jean Monnet Chair, for her exceptional vision and leadership. Her ability to connect rigorous research with public engagement has made EUGENDERING a reference point in the European gender studies landscape.
We also extend our deepest thanks to her for having chosen Gender Five Plus as a partner in this endeavour. Through this collaboration, we have together demonstrated that building a more gender-equal Europe means linking the classroom, the community, and the policymaking arena.
Looking Forward
As the EUGENDERING Chair closes its cycle, its legacy will endure — in the open-access resources it has created, in the community it has nurtured, and in the many students and scholars it has inspired.
Gender Five Plus will continue to build on this shared work: fostering evidence-based feminist knowledge, supporting transnational collaboration, and ensuring that gender equality remains at the heart of the European project.