UC-led European project on workplace violence secures over two million euros in funding
The research aims to identify and understand the causes of gender-based violence at work, and to develop preventive solutions.
With over two million euros in European funding, the Building Respectful and Violence-free Gender-inclusive Environments in the World of Work (BRAVE-WOW) project, led by the University of Coimbra (UC), seeks to study and address gender-based and workplace violence.
Running until 31 October 2027 and funded by the European Commission’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme, the project focuses on the healthcare sector – including hospitals, nursing homes and primary care centres – in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Slovenia. This sector was selected due to its high exposure to gender-based violence at work, explains Leonor Pais, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of UC and project coordinator.
Over the next two and a half years, the research team will collect and analyse data on workplace violence and how it intersects with factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, disability and social class. Through focus groups, interviews, round tables and sentiment analysis on social media, the consortium will develop tools such as the Workplace Gender-Based Violence Questionnaire and the Decent Work Questionnaire. These tools will then be tested in healthcare organisations across the four partner countries.
Project activities include a Europe-wide awareness campaign to prevent violence at work and the development of a platform to disseminate results and provide training for professionals and managers. The research results will be presented to policymakers to establish guidelines that promote decent work and gender equality and combat human rights violations in the workplace.
“Gender-based violence at work is often unidentified and therefore underreported,” says Leonor Pais. “New approaches are needed to understand its causes, which involve reviewing existing information and promoting long-term structural change.”
BRAVE-WOW brings together 19 organisations from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Slovenia. Portuguese partners include the UC, the University of Évora, SHINE2Europe, the Commission for Equality in Labour and Employment (CITE), the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG), the Authority for Working Conditions (ACT), and the Alentejo Central Local Health Unit. In addition to Leonor Pais, UC team members include FPCEUC lecturers Carla Carvalho and Sílvia Lopes.