NOVA School of Law reaffirms its commitment to fostering an environment that prioritizes inclusivity, free from discrimination. In line with this commitment, we have appointed a Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination to actively promote diversity and create a supportive atmosphere where every member of our community can thrive.

Actions taken in the area of diversity, inclusion, and non-discrimination at NOVA School of Law include:

• Approval of the Guidelines on Diversity, Inclusion, and Non-discrimination. These guidelines encompass a tripartite objective:
  • • Promoting inclusion and gender equality in institutional events such as conferences and seminars. By embracing flexible criteria, the guidelines enable organizers to assess whether the pursuit of gender balance and inclusivity has been integrated into the selection of invited speakers, without prescribing strict numerical benchmarks.
    • Incorporating, whenever feasible, a gender and inclusivity perspective into course syllabi. This entails applying such a perspective to subject selection, bibliographic references, and the broader development of course syllabi. Furthermore, NOVA School of Law is steadfastly committed to broadening the array of courses addressing themes within the domain of gender and inclusivity studies.
    • Ensuring that inclusion and gender equality are key considerations in the composition of internal committees, juries, panels, and other bodies.
• Organization of an Inclusivity Day to reflect on the importance of creating a discrimination-free space at NOVA School of Law.

The Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination serves as the contact for discrimination-related issues, aligning with the definition of inclusion adopted by the EUTOPIA Inclusion Manifesto, of which NOVA School of Law is a signatory. According to it, inclusion can be defined “positively in terms of empowering individuals and groups and enhancing their sense of belonging, or negatively in terms of reducing the factors that exclude individuals and groups based on markers, and their intersections, such as gender identity, ethnicity, race, nationality, culture, religion, mental and physical functionalities, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status.”

In order to address factors that exclude members of our community on the basis of these markers and their intersections, the Head can be contacted to report instances of discrimination or to receive suggestions on actions that can be taken to promote the values of inclusivity, diversity and non-discrimination in our community.

An additional channel for reporting incidents of discrimination can be found here.

Contacts: nausica.palazzo@novalaw.unl.pt