Building a Transnational Consortium for Participatory Approaches to Gender Equality and Sport Policy

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Destination Horizon Grants. “Building a Transnational Consortium for Participatory Approaches to Gender Equality and Sport Policy.” (2026 – 2027)

This proposed project between partners from the Global Observatory for Gender Equality and Sport (GO), based in Lausanne, Switzerland, the School of Kinesiology and Health Science (KHS) and Sport Management (SM) from York University (Toronto, Canada) aims to strengthen international, interdisciplinary, and intersectoral collaboration in preparation for a future Horizon Europe Pillar II application. The project aims to: 1) facilitate scholarly and policy exchange, supporting conceptual and ethical alignment; and 2) build consortium readiness around shared priorities related to gender equality, sport, and impact measurement. Through structured exchanges and collaborative planning activities, the project will create space for expansive dialogue among Canadian and European researchers, policy actors, and practitioners about participatory and feminist data justice-oriented approaches to policy and evaluation in and through sport and physical education. These exchanges will be anchored in feminist data justice perspectives that foreground fundamental questions about who creates, benefits from, and is excluded from data systems, and which are increasingly relevant in global policy contexts where gender-responsive and contextually grounded approaches remain unevenly developed. In sport and physical education, these challenges are particularly pronounced, as women’s, girls’ and gender diverse people’s participation, leadership and health outcomes are often inconsistently tracked or rendered invisible within dominant measurement systems.

By investing in the relational, conceptual, and organizational groundwork required for large-scale collaboration, this project positions Canadian and European partners to pursue a Horizon Europe Pillar II proposal aligned with Cluster 1: Health and Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society. In doing so, it strengthens the foundations for future research aimed at advancing more inclusive, democratic, and contextually responsive policy infrastructures for gender equality in and through sport and physical education.