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Success in Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
The Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń is a partner in a project that has received funding in the European Commission's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges 2024 competition. The alliance's research with NCU's participation addresses the context of living with disability for girls and women from culturally marginalised groups.
MSCA Staff Exchanges is a call funded under Horizon Europe to support international, cross-sector and interdisciplinary mobility of staff involved in research and innovation activities. The programme enables institutions such as universities, research institutes, companies and other organisations to form consortia to carry out joint research and innovation projects by seconding staff to partner institutions.
In the latest edition of the call for proposals, 329 applications were submitted, with 83 projects receiving funding - totalling almost EUR 99.5 million. 15 entities from Poland, the largest share of which are universities (73%), will participate as coordinators or partners in a total of 13 projects.
One of them is Fostering rights and agency with girls and women with disabilities from culturally minoritised groups (FRIDA). The leader of the research project and academic exchange is the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) in Spain. The Nicolaus Copernicus University is a partner in the international alliance, research project and academic exchange. The FRIDA project is concerned with research on the context of living with disability for girls and women from culturally marginalised groups. It aims to design activities that promote the empowerment of girls and women from the groups studied - in the educational, work and family spheres, based on legislative mapping of progress in the fundamental rights of the subjects identified, in each partner country and through qualitative empirical research. The specific design of the FRIDA project incorporates an interdisciplinary and intersectional research perspective, aiming to identify priorities reflecting the needs of girls and women with disabilities from the indicated culturally marginalised groups, as well as identifying barriers and catalysts in education, work and sociofamily services. The project includes the design of innovative and inclusive recommendations, promotes the democratisation of research processes and the academic exchange of good inclusive practices.
The project will be implemented by 15 partner institutions: 10 universities from Europe, Latin America and Africa, and five non-academic centres - support organisations for people with disabilities, including women and girls. The Frida project starts in January 2026 and will last until the end of 2029 (48 months). The research team from the Nicolaus Copernicus University consists of the project coordinator on behalf of the Nicolaus Copernicus University and head of the research team at the NCU - dr. habil. Beata Borowska-Beszta, NCU Prof. (education, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences) and members of the research team: dr. Emilia Aksamit (education, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus University), dr. Piotr Sadowski (law, Faculty of Law and Administration), dr Mateusz Smieszek (education, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences), dr Anna Wójtewicz (sociology, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences). The total budget of the project is: EUR 1,738,470.
