Egalitarian World Initiative (EWI)
The Egalitarian World Initiative (EWI) is a university-wide initiative established in UCD in 2004. It aims to make UCD a world leader in research and teaching on equality, social justice and human rights. Its goal is not only to create a global centre of teaching and research excellence but also to integrate research and teaching programmes with outreach activities promoting social inclusion and policy analysis.
Click here to visit the EWI website
The EWI mission is as follows:
To create a body of research scholarship disseminated through teaching and outreach initiatives, in collaboration with egalitarian driven organisation locally and globally, that will lead the world intellectually in divining a vision for a new, inclusive, egalitarian global order.
At the core of the EWI is a network of UCD staff, drawn from all five Colleges, committed to pursuing global justice and equality and to mainstreaming an ethical global perspective university-wide. Close to 90 full time academic staff, along with colleagues from the Access office, the New ERA and Adult Education (Outreach) programmes are affiliated. The EWI is an open and evolving network.
Teaching
A major objective of the EWI is to mainstream teaching and research programmes around the themes of global justice, equality and human rights in UCD. Multi-annual funding has been secured from Irish Aid (Dept Foreign Affairs) to support the development and delivery of three new undergraduate courses under the modularised Horizons programme. These are:
Creating an Egalitarian Global Order
Gender and Development
Childhood Inequality in a Global Context
In addition to the funded EWI undergraduate courses, members of the network have identified EWI-relevant electives that they will make available within the modularised Horizons. A total of 15 such electives are offered in 2006/2007 by five different Schools.
Research
There are 13 cross-disciplinary EWI Research Clusters. These are focused on the following themes:
Food
Energy
Children’s Rights
The Built Environment
Business Ethics and Globalisation
Global Justice and Rural Development
Egalitarian Theory and Research Methodologies
Animal Rights and Animal Welfare
Women, Gender and Sexuality
Migration and Citizenship
Equality and Education Disability
Health
Building Institutional Capacity
The EWI has received an EU Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge award for a four year programme entitled an Egalitarian and Socially Inclusive Europe (ESIE). The Marie Curie programme will build on the intellectual and organisational infrastructure offered by the EWI to enhance UCD’s institutional capacity in egalitarian theory and equality sensitive research methodologies and practice. The ESIE programme commences in October 2006.
EWI Management
There is a cross disciplinary EWI Management Committee of seven drawn from four of the five Colleges of UCD. The EWI is currently hosted by the Equality Studies Centre, UCD School of Social Justice.
EWI Co-ordinator: Dr Pauline Faughnan: Pauline.Faughnan@ucd.ie
