International research highlights the barriers and fears faced by individuals who have experienced sexual harassment and violence in academia, resulting in most of these cases remaining hidden, unreported and unresolved. Two surveys on violence, harassment and mobbing were conducted at the University of Ljubljana, which showed that the most common form of violence among employees is mobbing, while various forms of sexual violence and harassment are common among students, which are largely related to positions of power and are gender-specific. This means that mostly female students reported that they had experienced sexual violence and harassment mainly from male full-time professors. The survey also showed that only a minimal proportion (less than 20%) of female students who have experienced sexual violence and harassment have chosen to report the violence. This low rate of reporting persists even though the University of Ljubljana has made major changes in dealing with violence and harassment, as many measures have been taken in the last three years to effectively address this problem on a systemic level. Nevertheless, we still observe a widespread fear and scepticism among the student population to report violence. Practise has shown that the adoption of individual regulations and measures alone is not enough, as practises are still evolving and the key now lies in the effective implementation of the changes adopted. In this context, it is particularly important that systematic institutional support is provided at the university. An extremely important step in this direction is the measure that all faculties belonging to the University of Ljubljana had to appoint confidential persons who have regular training, education and supervision. In this presentation, the author will focus on the question of what the main reasons for non-reporting of violence by students are and what role confidential persons at institutions can play in changing this situation. The system of confidential persons at the University of Ljubljana has proven to be very effective and useful, because even though the number of official complaints has not increased significantly, in the last three years since the establishment of the institute of confidental persons, the number of people who have sought informal help and talked to the confidants about the violence has increased, which in some cases has encouraged the search for proactive solutions, even if there was no formal complaint. In the presentation, using the example of the University of Ljubljana, the author will focus on who confidential persons are, what their role is, how they are selected, who should not be a confidential person, how their work should be monitored, how institutions should provide for their training and what their main responsibilities are, and reflect on how confidential persons can contribute to a more proactive resolution of these issues within their own institutions.

Although gender-based violence is prevalent in all countries and all social, organisational and professional settings, how it is conceptualised and understood, and to what extent or in what forms it is tolerated or opposed, is strongly influenced by contextual factors (Humbert et al. 2023). In any context, social, cultural, organisational, regulatory and other factors interact at different levels to produce manifestations of gender-based violence that have both universal and specific components. Higher education and research institutions are no exception, with gender-based violence now recognised as a widespread systemic problem, with negative consequences for institutions, individuals and societies (Mergaert, Linkova & Strid 2023).

From this perspective, gender-based violence, like the gender inequality that underlies it, can be qualified as a highly complex social problem due to its multiple causes, lack of a single dominant solution, context-sensitivity and intricate links with other societal issues (Eden & Wagstaff 2021). Complexity refers not only to gender-based violence as a social problem, but inevitably extends to the interventions and policies designed to address it, as well as to the system of actors involved, making it difficult to think of standard tools and solutions.

To overcome the difficulty of identifying common ways to address complex, context-sensitive social problems, multi-stakeholder engagement strategies are often proposed (Cashore et al. 2019), where affected communities participatively define the principles and design the processes that would be part of the proposed solution. Involving a wider range of stakeholders from different countries and types of institutions would help to address the need for context sensitivity (Reidl et al. 2020), allowing the consequences of different demands on different types of stakeholders to be anticipated.

This is the challenge being addressed by the GenderSAFE project, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation, which will design and test a standard template for a European-level code of conduct for addressing gender-based violence.

Our contribution will first examine the issues that arise from the involvement of multiple stakeholders in the process of defining common tools and procedures in a highly heterogeneous context, and then explore the choice made in GenderSAFE to address this challenge through the creation of a Community of Practice (CoP), understood as a social learning environment (Wenger 1999). The CoP will be the tool to bridge the tension between the need for standardised approaches to gender-based violence on the one hand, and the specific, contextual needs of each participating institution on the other. Through the CoP, the relationship between general principles and diverse social and institutional practices will be deepened as a critical nexus in the development of profound and sustainable change processes.

The reluctance to report gender-based violence is attributed to individual costs associated with reporting and the institutional protection afforded to harassers, collectively contributing to a substantial underreporting phenomenon (Täuber et al., 2022). This, in turn, perpetuates organizational cultures that facilitate harassment. Various factors, including legal structures, national contexts, and methodological challenges, impact prevalence studies on sexual harassment. Estimates reveal that only 5-30% of cases are formally reported, with less than 1% undergoing legal processes (McDonald, 2012). Despite continuous updates in complaint management systems, a paradox persists: ongoing and systematic underreporting of harassment experiences contrasts with the evolution of systems designed to address complaints. Research in the field highlights challenges in defining, sampling, and surveying sexual harassment in higher education, emphasizing the imperative need to address underreporting and foster a culture of openness and accountability. The sentiment is reinforced by a systematic review in higher education, suggesting that policy enhancements may not substantially alter reporting behaviour (Bondestam & Lundqvist, 2020)

This paper delves into the pervasive issue of underreporting gender-based violence within academic institutions, a subject that has received limited attention compared to intimate partner violence. Drawing on existing literature, we explore the presence of a "culture of silence" in academia, sustained by power imbalances and inequality regimes. The study underscores the scarcity of research on underreporting in the academic context, despite organizational studies indicating its existence. To overcome this gap, this paper presents the qualitative study performed through 10 in depth interviews of researchers and Gender Equality Officers in Spain. The qualitative approach provides an opportunity to explore the intricacies of the "culture of silence" within academia and can shed light on the power imbalances and inequality regimes that sustain this culture and uncover the specific challenges and barriers faced by individuals in reporting gender-based violence. Additionally, the study can offer a nuanced understanding of the institutional dynamics and protection mechanisms that contribute to underreporting.

By addressing this research gap, the study not only contributes to the academic literature on gender-based violence but also provides practical implications for fostering a culture of openness and accountability within academic institutions. It adds a contextualized layer to the existing knowledge, offering a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing underreporting in academia.

The fight against GBV in Academia has become one of the themes on which very robust scientific reflection is being consolidated (Pritchard & Edwards, 2023), both in terms of sharing conceptual tools to precisely define and recognize practices and behaviors which fall within this discursive field and which are sedimented in the power relations typical of hierarchically organized institutions, both with respect to the strategies to be activated to counter the phenomenon (Mergaert et al., 2023; Lipinsky & Schredl, 2023).

The inclusion of this issue among the mandatory key thematic areas of the Gender Equality Plans defined as an eligibility criterion for all universities for the purposes of accessing European research funding (in particular in the framework of Horizon Europe programs) has made the need to adopt adequate measures to operationally address the problem even more urgent (Cois et al. 2023).

Drawing inspiration from some campaigns activated in other higher educational contexts - in particular #qualcosanonva (“something is wrong”: https://qualcosanonva.it/), and #finiscequi (“it ends here”, created at the University of Trento: https://www.unitn.it/finiscequi) - the University of Cagliari (Italy) has formulated a multidisciplinary project, which involves both the STEM areas and the social sciences, to set up and distribute in public space throughout the city some iconic objects (totem, self-supported posters), self-built by students in collaboration with teachers, containing provocative and engaging sentences, taken from common daily experience, which compel those who come across them - inside and outside the physical perimeter of the university - to question their perception of what should be understood by GBV and how pervasive the topic can be in daily routine.

The objective is to develop awareness and provide discursive tools to, first of all, recognize the phenomenon, in its triple meaning of violence suffered (as victims), assisted (as by-standers) and also practiced “unconsciously” (as perpetrators) and, consequently, to start a public debate that could lead to shared operational proposals, to be integrated among the tools and measures already included in the organizational architecture of the University (mainly defined by the Ethics Commission, the Guarantee Committee for equal opportunities, the Guarantor for students and the new figure soon to be introduced of the Trustee Advisor, accompanied by the opening of a specific desk for collecting reports).

The project will be implemented starting from March 2024 and will involve, with temporary itinerant installations, all 6 faculties distributed throughout the city, with the aim of giving relevance to the public engagement mission of the university as a public actor committed to promoting cultural change that is as pervasive, participatory and long-term as possible (Pilinkaite Sotirovic & Blazyte, 2023).

The contribution aims to give an account of the conception and implementation phases of the project and to return the first detectable results with respect to the feedback generated not only in the university community (teaching and research population, technical-administrative staff and student body) but also in the resident and city users of Cagliari who have developed a relationship of great permeability with the university.