LeraLink / SSStudio – Simple Gender Equality Plan (GEP)

Version: 2025–2027 (Minimal Compliance Version)

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1. Purpose and Positioning

LeraLink is an early-stage, micro-scale R&D initiative within SSStudio (Netherlands). Our work focuses on multilingual Open Science, epistemic injustice, and inclusive knowledge infrastructures. Because inequality in science emerges not only from gender but also from language barriers, access barriers, and social origin, our approach to gender equality is broad, human-centered, and rooted in epistemic justice.

We emphasise the participation of women innovators, researchers, and founders not because it is a bureaucratic obligation, but because diverse knowledge producers create more careful, responsible, and socially relevant solutions, and because women are disproportionately excluded from global knowledge systems through monolingualism, structural biases, and unequal access.

This GEP ensures to remain realistic for a young, growing micro-enterprise like SSStudio (LeraLink, Founders Journey Academy, and SelfPress App).

2. Mandatory Horizon Europe Requirements (Minimal Set)

2.1 Public Document & Endorsement

This short plan is publicly available on the SSStudio/LeraLink website.

It is endorsed by the founder and director.

2.2 Dedicated Responsibility (Lightweight)

Given our micro-scale structure, the responsibility for monitoring this GEP is assigned directly to the director.

No additional staff or complex structures are planned at this stage.

2.3 Basic Data Monitoring

We only collect minimal, GDPR-safe, voluntary, gender-disaggregated information on:

• collaborators we work with,
• leadership roles in projects,
• authorship in outputs.

We do not collect sensitive categories or maintain detailed personnel datasets due to scale limitations.

2.4 Basic Training Commitment

Once per year, the core team will complete a short, external training or resource review on:

• unconscious bias in research,
• gender and inequality in Open Science,
• epistemic injustice and language-based exclusion.

This satisfies the Horizon Europe training requirement in a simple and scalable way.

3. Our Focus: Epistemic Injustice, Multilingualism & Inequality

LeraLink’s contribution to equality is grounded in our actual mission, not generic HR policies.

3.1 Multilingualism as Gender & Social Inclusion

Much exclusion in research emerges from language hierarchy (e.g., English dominance).

Women in non-English research communities are doubly marginalised:

• by gender bias,
• by linguistic invisibility.

Our approach aims to:

• support the visibility of work written in diverse languages,
• reduce dependency on English as a gateway to scientific legitimacy,
• make Open Science accessible across linguistic communities.

This is our core contribution to equity.

3.2 Women in Innovation & Open Science

Without committing to quotas, our principle is simple:

• We prioritise women innovators, founders, researchers and translators whenever possible, particularly in leadership roles, expert collaboration, and pilot work.

This is not performative compliance.

It reflects our belief that human-centered, ethical, and care-oriented solutions emerge more often from women-led initiatives.

4. Light, Realistic Actions (2025–2027)

1. Recruitment & Collaboration:
   • We will ensure women are actively included in calls for collaboration, expert networks, advisory roles, and pilot projects.
   • We avoid all-male panels and advisory groups to any extent possible.
2. Research & Innovation Content:
   • Projects involving multilingual knowledge, metadata, or LAK design will consider gender inequality, language inequality, and representation.
   • We focus on avoiding “masculine defaults” in multilingual metadata and provide inclusive alternatives where relevant.
3. Work Environment:
   • Flexible and remote-first collaboration to support caregivers (especially women).
   • No expectation of after-hours responsiveness.
4. Anti-Harassment & Respect:
   • A simple code of conduct prohibiting discrimination, harassment, and disrespect in digital or physical collaboration spaces.
   • Clear policy: if a partner violates this, we discontinue collaboration.
5. Annual Review:
   • Once each year, we update this document lightly based on what we actually learned, not on artificial KPIs or unrealistic goals.

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5. Closing Statement

LeraLink is too young and too small to implement large institutional frameworks, and we do not pretend otherwise. Our commitment is modest but authentic: we aim to reduce epistemic injustice, especially where gender inequality intersects with linguistic and structural exclusion in science.

We view multilingualism, Open Science, and diversity not as compliance obligations but as part of how knowledge becomes more just, accessible, and human.

Signed,

Sajad Sepehri

Director, LeraLink

SSStudio (Netherlands)