The Equal Opportunities Plan

The University of West Bohemia wants to create an environment that fully develops the potential of all, an environment that is welcoming, fair, safe, supportive and one that expresses respect for individuality.

That is why UWB has prepared its own gender equality plan called the Equal Opportunities Plan.

The Equal Opportunities Plan is based on the findings of a gender audit conducted at UWB in 2021. The gender audit addressed a wide range of topics related to equal opportunities and gender equality in the workplace, starting with recruitment, career development and training, work-life balance, remuneration, evaluation, gender representation in the horizontal and vertical structure of UWB, diversity of work teams (in terms of age, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, etc.) through to the dismissal process. It also examined the organizational culture at UWB and negative workplace phenomena including sexual harassment and gender-based violence. As part of its Equal Opportunities Plan, UWB intends to build on and further develop the recommendations from the gender audit.

The Plan is designed to cover a three-year period and UWB has set medium- and long-term goals in five areas. The thematic areas of creating a respectful and supportive environment for reconciling work and personal life (Priority Axis I) and creating an environment of social safety, non-discrimination and freedom from (sexual) harassment (Priority Axis V) have been selected as priority areas. Furthermore, the Plan focuses on promoting gender balance in management and decision-making positions (priority axis II) and promoting gender equality in recruitment and career development (priority axis III), and addresses the gender dimension in research and teaching content (priority axis IV) with two measures.

The Plan was developed by the "University-wide HR Award and Equal Opportunities Plan" working group, in which all parts of UWB are represented. The work of the group is coordinated by a member of the Quality Division / Department of Staff Development who, with their team, will also be responsible for the implementation of the individual measures. The Equal Opportunities Plan has been approved by the management of UWB and presented and discussed by the UWB Rector’s Board.