Discrimination against LGBTIQ+ is a persistent reality, with many examples of homophobic and transphobic violence worldwide. For example, according to the largest survey of LGBT people involving 28 European countries, approximately a 26% of the more than 93000 LGBT participants were attacked or threatened with violence between 2008 and 2013¹. As evidenced, the educational system is not immune to this reality. For instance, almost 99% of the students from United Kingdom admitted having heard homophobic insults and remarks at least once in their schools and 55% of LGBT students suffered bullying along their school years². This situation is highly worrying as homophobic bullying can affect negatively LGBTIQ students’ physical³ and psychological health⁴. A research carried out at Polish context illustrates that 63% of LGBT students had thought about suicide, compared to 12% of general population⁵.

However, this reality is specially silenced when affecting Catalan and Spanish higher education, as there is a gap in researches related to this field. For this reason, Uni4Freedom - Violence due to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression becomes fundamental, aiming to improve the quality of life of LGTBIQ university community and breaking the silence on the violence against this collective. In order to achieve this goal, the project presents an interdisciplinary research team made up of 16 researchers from 11 national and international universities and members from LGBTIQ+ entities and social movements. 

The design of Uni4Freedom research is based on two hypotheses: 1) Violence due to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression is an existing reality in diverse forms of manifestation at Catalan universities and 2) Successful measures are being implemented internationally to prevent and overcome this violence. To address these hypotheses, Uni4Freedom aims to accomplish the following objectives:

1)      To deepen on the existing literature about violence against LGBTIQ+ community at national and international universities

2)      To identify violence due to sexual orientation and gender identity and expression at Catalan Universities

3)      To provide scientific-based orientations to the elaboration on non-discrimination protocols, following the guidelines of the Catalan Law 11/2014⁶

4)      To increase institutional representatives’ awareness of LGBTIQ+ violence and provide evidences that facilitate their decisions

Therefore, Uni4Freedom will orient their actions to the final goal of attaining free-of-violence institutions for LGTBIQ students and for those who support them.

Firstly, the research team carried out a literature review to deepen on the concept of homophobia and to identify actions with positive impact on overcoming LGBT violence at university. One of these main definitions of homophobia is the one provided by the European Parliament⁷, which defines it as the “aversion to homosexuality and to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people based on prejudice and similar to racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and sexism”. This discrimination constitutes a violation of Human Rights that can take diverse manifestations, including "hate speech and incitement to discrimination, ridicule and verbal, psychological and physical violence, persecution and murder, discrimination”, among others. On the other hand, the United Nations differentiate between homophobic violence and discrimination. Whereas the former includes⁸ physical assault, sexual aggressions and targeted killings; the latter refers⁹ to social stigma, exclusion, bullying, denial of appropriate services and attacks to reputation, among others.

Several researches related to LGBTIQ+ violence follow this categorization, which includes physical violence, psychological violence, sexual aggression, persecution and verbal discrimination¹⁰ and Uni4Freedom questionnaire was elaborated according to these guidelines.

Finally, regarding the proposal of positive interventions to overcome LGBTIQ+ violence, Uni4Freedom will design strategies that accomplish with the orientations provided by international models, such as Campus Pride Index. This index evaluates campus inclusivity towards LGBTIQ based on criteria like educational policies, housing, occupation and associations.

Uni4Freedom is a project designed upon the paradigm of Communicative Methodology of Research (CMR)11, a research methodology that has evidenced to contribute to the identification of Successful Educational Actions on the overcoming of social and educational inequalities. Moreover, former projects based on this framework have demonstrated their positive impact in the prevention and eradication of violence at the university context12. CMR perspective is based on the establishment of an egalitarian dialogue between researchers and the beneficiaries along the whole process, counting on all the voices to design and develop the research. Thus, the scientific knowledge is created when contrasting scientific evidences coming from the research with life-knowledge provided by the diversity of social agents. Within CMR paradigm, Uni4Freedom promotes the participation of a major variety of social agents, including students, professors, politic representatives and LGBTIQ+ associations. In this direction, the project team decided to create an advisory committee, counting on LGBTIQ+ entities from the territory and students belonging to LGBTQ+ collective. This advisory committee has participated in the meetings with the research team, with a particularly remarkable role in the design of the fieldwork instruments. Their contributions were the cornerstone of the design process, as they provided a unique perspective characterized by its inclusivity towards sexual and gender diversity. Furthermore, Uni4Freedom implements CMR in all the phases, from the design of the fieldwork instruments to the dissemination of the results. In this direction, the LGBTIQ+ associations of the advisory committee have a constant role in the whole research process. After taking part in the elaboration of the questionnaire, the advisory committee will validate the results obtained from the data collection and will contribute to their analysis. Then, a report summarizing the main findings will be elaborated and presented to the six universities. The dissemination of this document will take place in the Uni4Freedom LABS: dialogic workshops addressed to the entire university community, including students, professors, administrative staff, political and institutional representatives, LGBTIQ+ associations and researchers. This multiplicity of perspectives will enrich the discussion, promoting deeper reflections and further results, which will be fundamental to provide orientations to the accomplishment of the Catalan Law 11/20146.

One of the main results in this first stage of the project is the questionnaire design, which will allow data collection related to the presence of LGBTIQ+ violence at university. Uni4Freedom questionnaire is the first instrument addressed to identify LGBTIQ+ violence at universities in the Spanish context. Thus, it has placed the project as a pioneer project in this field, considering the existing gap in scientific literature about this type of violence in Catalonia and Spain. The process of elaboration of the questionnaire followed the CMR and started with a literature review. This review enabled to categorize diverse violence manifestations and attitudes, which was fundamental in the design of the questionnaire items. Following this pioneering nature of the project, the validated categorization included physical aggressions, psychological violence and sexual aggression, fear of expressing sexual orientation, social exclusion, discriminatory remarks and second order harassment. The instrument was presented to the advisory committee and their feedback was key to ensure the questionnaire suitability to the LGBTIQ+ context, providing an enrichening point of view. Thus, the questionnaire includes all the voices, as it was elaborated contrasting scientific evidences with life-knowledge provided by social agents. After obtaining the approval from a University Ethical Committee, a pilot test was carried out with university students to validate it completely. The first results of the piloting confirmed the initial hypothesis regarding the presence of violence against LGBTIQ+ community at universities. Summarizing, Uni4Freedom follows the perspective of Social Impact12 of research which objective is “the improvement of society and citizens in relation to their own goals”, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals13. Within this framework, all the results aim to break the silence related to LGBTIQ+ violence at university and to increase community awareness, as a first step in the eradication of this social problem.

1 - European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights - FRA. (2014). EU LGBT survey: Main results. https://doi.org/10.2811/37969 2 - Guasp, A., Statham, H., Jadva, V., & Daly, I. (2012). The School Report: The experiences of gay young people in Britain's schools in 2012. Stonewall. 3 - Woodford, M. R., Howell, M. L., Kulick, A., & Silverschanz, P. (2013). “That’s so Gay”: Heterosexual Male Undergraduates and the Perpetuation of Sexual Orientation Microagressions on Campus. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28(2), 416–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260512454719 4 - D’Augelli, A. R. (1992). Lesbian and Gay Male Undergraduates’ Experiences of Harassment and Fear on Campus. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7(3), 383–395. 5 - United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, U. (2016). OUT IN THE OPEN. Education sector responses to violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. Paris: UNESCO. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11882-010-0141-z 6 –LLEI 11/2014, per a garantir els drets de lesbianes, gais, bisexuals, transgèneres i intersexuals i per a eradicar l'homofòbia, la bifòbia i la transfòbia. Diari Oficial de la Generalitat de Catalunya, 6730, 10th October 2014. Retrieved from http://portaldogc.gencat.cat/utilsEADOP/PDF/6730/1376345.pdf 7 - European Parliament. (2006). European Parliament resolution on homophobia in Europe. P6_TA(2006)0018. Belgium. Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2006-0018+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN 8 - United Nations for LGBTI Equality, U. (2018). Violence. Free & Equal. 9 - United Nations for LGBTI Equality, U. (2018). Equality & Non-Discrimination. Free & Equal. 10 - Ellis, S. J. (2009). Diversity and inclusivity at university: A survey of the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) students in the UK. Higher Education, 57(6), 723–739. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-008-9172-y; Gilliam, M. (2016). CAMPUS CLIMATE Diversity and Inclusion, (November); Rankin, S. R. (2005). Campus climates for sexual minorities. New Directions for Student Services, 2005(111), 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.170 11 - Flecha, R., & Soler, M. (2014). Communicative methodology: Successful actions and dialogic democracy. Current sociology, 62(2), 232-242. 12 - Puigvert, L., Valls, R., Garcia Yeste, C., Aguilar, C., & Merrill, B. (2017). Resistance to and Transformations of Gender-Based Violence in Spanish Universities: A Communicative Evaluation of Social Impact. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 155868981773117. https://doi.org/10.1177/1558689817731170 13 - Besselaar, P. van den, Flecha, R., & Radauer, A. (2018). Monitoring the Impact of EU Framework Programmes: Expert Report. Brussels. https://doi.org/10.2777/518781