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The COSHARE North-South survey was carried out by University of Galway, School of Psychology staff Prof. Pádraig MacNeela, Liam McBrearty and Dr Lorraine Burke and Ulster University staff Dr Susan Lagdon, Dr Ngozi Anyadike-Danes and Dr Carol Rhonda Burns. The report outlines key findings from the first all-island study of Higher Education staff members’ experiences of consent, sexual violence, and harassment in Higher Education in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The survey was responded to by staff members in HEIs in the North and South of Ireland with 236 (45%) of respondents in HEIs in NI and 285 (55%) in ROI. 75% of respondents identified as female. Participants answered questions about themselves, their campus, their experiences of SVH and perpetration, the extent to which this impacted their mental wellbeing and ability to work, and their engagement with information and education or training initiatives on the subject.

The research found that, of the 364 staff who opted to respond to questions on their experiences of sexual violence and harassment, 43% have experienced some form of this behaviour in their work or personal lives in the last year and 66% in the last five years. In the context of this research, SVH is a collective term that includes physical contact or non-physical conduct of a sexual nature that occurs in the absence of clear, knowing and voluntary consent. This collaboration by Ulster University and the University of Galway seeks to understand these experiences and bring workplace culture and wellbeing into the conversation by assessing knowledge of policies and confidence in their institution. Funded by the Higher Education Authority under the North-South Research Programme, COSHARE surveyed Higher Education staff on consent and sexual violence and harassment (SVH) attitudes, knowledge and experience, their awareness of how their institutions address consent and SVH initiatives, and mental wellbeing. View the report here: https://www.consenthub.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Coshare_web_version_report_final.pdf