EUROPEAN INSTIUTE FOR GENDER EQUALITY (EIGE)

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is a Vilnius-based agency of the European Union inaugurated in 2007. EIGE supports the EU institutions and the Member States in promoting equality between women and men and combating sex discrimination. The Institute gathers, analyses and disseminates reliable and comparable research data and information needed by policy-makers. It has a documentation centre and a library which is open to the public.

Vision and Mission

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is an autonomous body of the European Union, established to contribute to and strengthen the promotion of gender equality, including gender mainstreaming in all EU policies and the resulting national policies, and the fight against discrimination based on sex, as well as to raise EU citizens’ awareness of gender equality. Equality between women and men is a fundamental value of the European Union.

As an autonomous body, EIGE operates within the framework of European Union policies and initiatives. The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union defined the grounds for the Institute’s objectives and tasks in its Founding Regulation and assigned it the central role of addressing the challenges of and promoting equality between women and men across the European Union.

Work

To support better-informed policy-making EIGE contributes to the promotion of gender equality in Europe through delivering high-level expertise to the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Member States and Enlargement countries.

EIGE collects, analyses, processes and disseminates data and information on gender equality issues, whilst at the same time making them comparable, reliable and relevant for the users.

2015 Key priorities

The key priorities for 2015 are

• Contribute to implementing the EU’s international commitments (Reports monitoring the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action) and to monitoring progress on achieving gender equality in the EU (Gender Equality Index)
• Deliver initial results of a sectoral approach to gender mainstreaming (within the research and innovation sector)
• Establish EIGE as the knowledge centre for work on gender-based violence in the EU

The planning and implementation of all EIGE’s activities is based on a coherent approach that involves collecting, analysing and processing information on gender equality in Europe in order to actively disseminate it. This enables the Institute to carry out its mission of becoming the European knowledge centre on gender equality issues, an independent source of information and knowledge on gender equality. To ensure synergies, avoid duplication and increase the effectiveness of its work, the Institute has established a close relationship and cooperation with relevant EU agencies.

Governance

The Management Board of the Institute consists of eighteen representatives of the EU Member States appointed by the Council and of one member representing the European Commission. An Experts' forum as further body of the institute consists of delegates designated by the Member States (28), the European Parliament (2) and the Commission (3), the latter including representatives from non-governmental, employers' and workers' organisations at EU level.