Summary
How can intersectionality move beyond theory and become embedded in the everyday practices of research? What does it mean to embed intersectionality structurally rather than symbolically? How can research institutions move beyond compliance frameworks toward transformative practice?
To better address these questions, Professor Victoria Showunmi, in her keynote, will explore how intersectionality reshapes the core assumptions, methods, and narratives within gender studies. This keynote examines the limitations of traditional single-axis approaches and demonstrates how centring diverse lived experiences, particularly those of minoritized women and girls, creates new epistemological and ontological possibilities. By highlighting emerging theoretical insights and transformative research practices, the talk invites scholars, leaders, and practitioners to imagine a more rigorous, inclusive, and forward-thinking future for gender research.
The keynote will be followed by a roundtable discussion with Rachel Palmen (INSPIRE Project), whose work advances inclusive research and innovation systems across Europe, and Yvonne Galligan (TU Dublin) an internationally recognised expert on inclusive gender equality in institutional reform. Together, the panel will reflect on how intersectional approaches can inform policy design, institutional leadership and sustainable change across research and innovation systems.
This event brings together scholars, research leaders, policymakers and equality practitioners committed to turning intersectionality from theory into meaningful action.
This round table discussion is part of the initiatives promoted by the SuSTEM Community of Practice, co-facilitated by ICM-CSIC and TU Dublin within the framework of the European Project INSPIRE: The European Centre of Excellence on Inclusive Gender Equality in Research and Innovation.
Short bio
Victoria Showunmi is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in Gender, Race and Identity at the Institute of Education (IOE), University College London (UCL). Her research interests are gender, identity, and race through the lens of intersectionality, focusing on leadership and the lived experience of Black women and girls. She develops fresh conceptual frameworks focusing on equity and social justice, especially the interplay between people and the sophistication of behaviours which lead to disengagement with the promo¬tion of equality. Victoria is Associate Editor for the following: British Educational Research Association (BERA); Gender, Work and Organisation; Emerald Books Series: Transforming Education through Critical Educational Leadership, Policy, and Practice; Interdisciplinary perspectives on equality and diversity: An International Journal; International Journal in Educational Leadership; and an editorial board member of the Bloomsbury Book Series: Critical Educational Leadership. She has also been editor of a number of special editions, such as for Management in Education and the European Educational Research Association. She is a member of the Gender and Education Executive, Past Chair of the British Educational Leadership Management and Administration Society, Chair of the International Studies Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Edu¬cational Research Association and co-convenor of the Gender Network of the European Educational Research Association.
Yvonne Galligan, MRIA, FAcSS is Professor Emerita in TU Dublin and Honorary Fellow in Trinity College Dublin. She has published extensively on gender equality in politics. A recent publication is (with Fiona Buckley, UCC) The 2024 general election – a gender analysis, Irish Political Studies (2025). She holds an honorary doctorate in social science from the University of Edinburgh and an OBE for services to higher education. In 2014 she was awarded Honorary Fellow of the Political Studies Association of Ireland. In 2024 she received the Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for professional contribution to political studies by the Political Studies Association.
Rachel Palmen is a Senior Researcher based at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in Barcelona, Spain. She has worked on various European Commission funded projects to promote gender equality in research and innovation. She formed part of EFFORTI which developed an evaluation framework for promoting gender equality in R&I and resulted in various publications. She worked on the TARGET project, the findings of which have been published in the book she co-edited, A Reflexive Approach to Structural Change. She also formed part of the ACT project, the findings of which are charted in the book she coedited, A Community of Practice Approach to Improving Gender Equality in Research. She is currently coordinator of INSPIRE: The European Centre of Excellence on Inclusive Gender Equality in Research and Innovation, a Horizon Europe project for five million euros over four years with 14 partners in Europe and Latin America.