Published the Action Plan for Equal Opportunity, Inclusion and Diversity at USI 2025-2028

The Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) recently approved the new Action Plan for Equal Opportunity, Inclusion and Diversity at USI 2025-2028 (from now Action Plan 2025-2028) proposed by the Equal Opportunity Service and adopted by USI as a tool to plan measures to be implemented in the area of protecting the principles of equity and non-discrimination and promoting diversity at all levels of institutional life and to monitor its results. The Plan was first introduced in 2013 and institutionalized in 2021.

First introduced in 2013 and institutionalized in 2021, this tool has allowed, over the years, and especially since the 2021-2024 edition, to broaden the scope by icluding, in addition to the gender perspective, measures that affected other dimensions of identity, starting with disability and neurodiversity.

Developed in response to the goals of USI's Strategic Planning 2025-2028 a “More Diverse USI” and in line with the objectives of the PgB swissuniverisities “Equité - Promouvoir l'égalité, la diversité et l'inclusion à tous les niveaux des hautes écoles (2025-2028), consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030, the Action Plan represents an important step toward an even broader and strengthened vision of the concepts of equal opportunity, inclusion, and diversity through the introduction of fields of intervention that, in addition to countering segregative pressures on women's academic career progressions and fostering gender rebalancing in different academic fields, aims to promote: an environment free of discrimination not only on the basis of gender; the psychological and social well-being of the entire community; the enhancement of diversity and the promotion of inclusion and equal opportunities for all people and groups in minority or difficult situations; the dissemination of a culture of ethical and inclusive responsibility; and accessible, inclusive conditions and paths of study and work in which diversity is valued and which allow people to reconcile their professional or study and private spheres.

As for the four-year period 2021-2024, the 2025-2028 Action Plan is developed on the following 4 areas of intervention;

• Careers - measures and activities to support career, professional and study paths made potentially difficult due to personal situations and/or structural conditions specific to the sector that favor their exclusion;
• Figures - monitoring activities with both exploratory and in-depth character with respect to the issues of equal opportunity inclusion and diversity in order to know any possible hidden structure of discrimination and inequality useful for the orientation of activities;
• Worklife balance - measures and activities to support reconciliation understood as the possibility of access to flexible work and study paths and modes in an environment that is also attentive to the needs of the private sphere;
• Culture - measures and activities aimed at spreading a culture of inclusion, equal opportunities and ethical responsibility.

The Action Plan 2025-2028 was approved and signed by Rector Luisa Lambertini and Pro-Rector for Sustainable Transformation and Equal Opportunity Sonja Hildebrand. 

More details on the Action Plan 2025-2028 can be found on the following page.

Previous Action Plans, covering the periods 2013-2016, 2017- 2020 and 2021-2024 can be found at the following link