This week, on Tuesday, May 17, coinciding with the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, organized by Professor Alicia Orea Giner, from the OpenInnova research group, we celebrated at the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the URJC in the undergraduate room of the Library, the seminar on Discrimination, gender, sexuality and power relations at the university. 

In the seminar, the results of research carried out by various teams were presented, and a debate was held on the most striking aspects highlighted with the aim of highlighting the current situation in the university environment and offering recommendations, instruments and actions aimed at promoting respect for diversity in gender and sexuality issues in the different pdi, pas and student groups.

In an introductory way, different works have been highlighted that show the importance of offering a diagnosis and putting in place organizational mechanisms aimed at eliminating situations of work stress, burnout syndrome and mobbing, all of them considered high risk factors in the different university groups. Studies have been presented that identify the factors that favor institutional practices such as abuse of power in the university environment, and identify the groups at greatest risk. Testimonials have been shown.

Different initiatives have been announced that, from the equality unit, the healthy university and the green office at the URJC have been developing for some time, aimed at promoting respect for diversity at the university, and the promotion and improvement of protocols of action before the appearance of risk situations. Next, the director of the Equality Unit of our university, Rosa Rodríguez Saavedra, highlighted the role that this unit has in aspects related to communication, awareness, training and support at the university for issues of gender equality and diversity. The URJC has recently joined the Network of Universities for Diversity. Next, Alejandra Selma Penalva, Professor of Labor Law and Social Security at the University of Murcia, highlighted the legislative and practical improvements regarding the approach of unexpected situations that could generate discrimination associated with maternity conditions and the role of university women in matters of labor conciliation. Jose Ignacio Pichardo Galán, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the Complutense University of Madrid, has highlighted the different barriers, innovations and future challenges in sex-gender diversity in the university sphere, highlighting the effectiveness of certain symbolic actions by different job profiles at the university, aimed at naturalizing and normalizing diversity. Subsequently Rebecca Tildesley, Researcher of the UNIGUAL project, aimed at diagnosing discriminatory gender situations in the university, revealed how power struggles influence the implementation of gender policies in universities, and highlighted resources that are being used to offer resistance. and counter-resistance to these situations. Later in the debate, other researchers in this field joined, such as Sara García de Vicuña Callejo, researcher in Feminist and Gender Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid. This seminar has highlighted the trajectory of our university in raising awareness, training and advice for the different groups, PDI, PAS and students in the acceptance of equality and respect for diversity, and has recognized the need to evolve in tools and practices aimed at raising awareness, mediating and helping from the university environment itself to resolve potential conflicts that arise on issues of discrimination based on gender or sex as a result of power relations.