Community Engagement (and Activism – sometimes called ‘trouble making’) is one of the pillars on which this Department is built.  We see this as collaboration, in a context of partnership and reciprocity, between the department and its members and our larger communities (local, national, European, global), for mutual benefit.  We believe in creating change, and that academia can work with community partners to help make this happen.  In so doing we build the capacity of individuals, groups and organisations, and simultaneously strengthen our academic role through teaching and research.

Our areas of community engagement reflect the department’s (gender and sexuality) academic staff’s areas of interest and specialisations, including media, human rights, social inclusion, gender based violence, LGBTIQ+, among others, and always through an intersectional lens.  We collaborate with intergovernmental, state and civil society organisations in these areas, through contributing to research, policy and practice.