1. Executive Summary
Compass – Beratung, Begleitung und Training gemeinnützige GmbH (“Compass”) is committed to actively promoting gender equality and balance in all areas of its work. This Gender Equality Plan (GEP) sets out Compass’ overarching commitments and framework for improving working conditions, career opportunities, professional development and participation for all staff members, trainers, volunteers and management, irrespective of gender.

Through the GEP and complementary internal initiatives, Compass engages in a continuous process of reviewing and improving its policies, procedures and organisational culture to identify and remove structural or implicit barriers that may lead to unequal treatment, discrimination or disadvantage on the basis of gender or intersecting characteristics.

The GEP supports Compass’ mission as a non-profit provider of counselling, training and project-based work in the fields of social inclusion, adult education and youth work. It ensures that gender equality is not treated as an isolated topic, but is mainstreamed into governance, human resources, project design and implementation, communication and cooperation with partners at local, national and European level.

2. Gender Equality Plan (GEP)
2.1 Developing a GEP: mandatory and recommended building blocks
A Gender Equality Plan (GEP) is a structured set of commitments and actions that aims to promote gender equality in an organisation through a process of systematic and sustainable organisational change (European Commission, 2021). GEPs focus on transforming organisational processes, structures and cultures that produce or maintain gender imbalances and inequalities.

For Compass, the GEP is not limited to visible structures such as formal policies and procedures. It also addresses the organisation’s values, attitudes and underlying assumptions (e.g. unconscious biases, norms and expectations) and how these influence everyday practice, decision-making and the design and delivery of projects, training activities and services.

The development of the GEP is built on several essential “building blocks”, which provide a common framework for planning, implementing and monitoring measures on gender equality. In line with current EU guidance, the present GEP for Compass covers two groups of building blocks:

Mandatory process-related elements: These are the minimum organisational components that must be in place for a credible and effective GEP (e.g. publication, resources, data collection, training).

Recommended content-related elements: These concern core gender equality issues that a GEP should address through concrete measures and targets (e.g. work-life balance, leadership, recruitment and career progression, integration of gender dimension in activities, preventing gender-based violence and harassment).

Compass’ GEP draws on the Horizon Europe eligibility criterion for Gender Equality Plans, which has been developed with input from national authorities, institutions and gender equality experts, and builds on the results of several EU-funded projects. Although Compass is not a higher education institution or research organisation in the narrow sense, these criteria offer a robust and widely recognised reference framework that Compass voluntarily follows and adapts to its own context as a non-profit training and social innovation organisation.
The GEP also recognises that gender inequality frequently intersects with other forms of discrimination, for example based on ethnicity, migration background, disability, age, sexual orientation, socio-economic status or other personal characteristics. Where possible, the GEP will therefore take an intersectional perspective and align with Compass’ broader diversity and inclusion policies.

Box 1 – Gender equality plans and gender mainstreaming (Horizon Europe Eligibility Criterion as reference framework)
To be eligible for Horizon Europe funding, legal entities from EU Member States and Associated Countries that are public bodies, research organisations or higher education institutions (including private ones) must have a Gender Equality Plan that covers at least the following minimum process-related requirements:
• Publication: a formal document, signed by top management, publicly available on the institution’s website.
• Dedicated resources: clear commitment of resources and expertise in gender equality to implement the plan.
• Data collection and monitoring: collection of sex/gender-disaggregated data on personnel (and students, where applicable) and annual reporting based on indicators.
• Training and awareness: regular awareness-raising and training on gender equality and unconscious gender bias for staff and decision-makers.

Content-wise, it is recommended that a GEP addresses the following areas with concrete measures and targets:
• work–life balance and organisational culture;
• gender balance in leadership and decision-making;
• gender equality in recruitment and career progression;
• integration of the gender dimension into research, teaching and project content, where relevant;
• measures against gender-based violence, including sexual harassment.

Although Compass is not required by law to comply with the Horizon Europe eligibility criterion, it aligns its GEP with these minimum standards and adapts them to its organisational reality, scope of activities and size. This means that Compass:
• adopts and publishes this GEP as a formal, management-approved document;
• allocates time and basic resources to coordinate and implement gender equality actions;
• progressively improves the collection and use of gender-disaggregated data on its staff and activities;
• provides or participates in training and awareness-raising on gender equality and unconscious bias.

These building blocks provide Compass with a structured framework to:
• understand existing gender imbalances,
• define realistic aims and objectives, and
• take effective, measurable action to promote gender equality across the organisation and its projects.

Source: European Commission (2021), Horizon Europe – Work Programme 2021–2022, General Annexes, Part 13: Gender Equality Plan (GEP) eligibility criterion.