Towards a Zero Tolerance Approach: A Good Practice Guide to implementing 'Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive – Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Higher Education'

The Good Practice Guide (GPG) is a document that aims to assist Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Ireland implement, and give true life to, Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive – Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions (2020) (the Framework). The Framework is a Government document, published by the Department of Education and Skills (but now falls within the remit of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation, and Science). It sets out 15 key outcomes, which are clustered under four thematic pillars:

• Institutional Culture
• Institutional Processes
• Institutional Policies
• Targeted Initiatives

Each HEI has published an Action Plan for the implementation of the Framework which is structured around these 4 pillars and associated outcomes.

The Higher Education Authority (HEA) supports and monitors sectoral and institutional implementation of the Framework and HEIs report on progress to the HEA on an annual basis. The HEA is supported in its work by an expert Advisory Group on Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions, which was established in 2021.

Every HEI in Ireland is in the process of implementing the Framework, and in many cases, this work was undertaken for several years before the Framework was published. There has been a grassroots movement to recognise the issue of Sexual Violence and Harassment (SVH) in Higher Education in Ireland, as well as worldwide, for the last two decades. In Ireland, with other European Partners, the ESHTE Project. This project was established in 2016 and aimed to ‘prevent and combat SVH and build a culture of zero tolerance in universities and third-level Institutions throughout Europe through developing a feminist understanding and analysis of the causes and effects of SVH against women students’. This project, and its successful campaigns, laid the groundwork for the movements we have seen toward ending SVH in Higher Education in Ireland in the last five years, and we are indebted to it. The National Advisory Committee (the NAC) was created as an offshoot of the ESHTE project and has been co-ordinated by the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) since 2018. The HEA ESVH Advisory Group played a crucial role in the development and analysis of comprehensive national

surveys that explored experiences of staff and student experiences of sexual violence and harassment in Higher Education in 2021. The rich findings of the surveys have informed policy and funding decisions, including the development of the ‘Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Higher Education Institutions Implementation Plan, 2022-2024’ that is currently being implemented.