GENDEX · Gender and Diversity Index for a fair, competitive, resilient and sustainable Europe

The GENDEX mission consists of the development of the Pilot Innovation Gender and Diversity Index, providing consistent information (currently missing or fragmented) to startups, scaleups, corporates, the EIC, other investors and funding bodies, market actors and policy makers across Europe. The overall aim is to improve the availability of all talent, particularly female talent, to the EIC portfolio of projects and companies and the EU innovation ecosystem. For the first time ever, a G&D Index will be elaborated including a wide range of indicators related to gender but also to diversity factors covering all European Member States plus the U.K. GENDEX will review the existing baseline and access a high number of data sources, but it will bring a unique value by carrying out additional primary research both at quantitative and qualitative levels. Data sets will be assessed, gaps will be identified, a more standard-based approach to data will be suggested, all resulting in a richer definition of indicators and hence a G&D Index that will become a reference in Europe supporting evidence-based decision-making. A full report on the Index will be released with complementary material, including a web-based interactive dashboard that will enable smart data visualizations and a widget that will be used for company self-assessment and as a potential data collection tool. A wide dissemination, communication and awareness campaign will be implemented to ensure engagement and maximize the adoption of the G&D Index. The GENDEX consortium comprises a complementary set of recognized partners that includes IDC, European Women in VC and BluSpecs, authors of some of the key works in the field and also a guarantee of the best possible networks for stakeholder engagement. Such engagement will ultimately lead to maximization of the use of the G&D Index and hence, of its impact. GENDEX will also run a 2-phase validation with an experts’ group composed of at least 18 senior leaders.