The Intersectionality Lab – European Research Center is a nonprofit research center dedicated to bridging the gap between academic knowledge and civil activism. We believe that knowledge should not be locked and produced behind institutional walls. It should be co-created, move vividly, breathe, and empower.
Knowledge production and access is never neutral. Since it is not equally accessible nor represents a majority of people, our call is to share research, skills, and critical tools with people of all ethnicities, genders, sexualities, classes, educational levels, body types, neurodiversities, abilities, and ages.
Where We Began
Our journey started in 2008 as the ADIJ Gender Program. In 2016, we expanded into the Young Educators Gender Program, strengthening our focus on gender equality through an intersectional lens.
From the very beginning, we envisioned this work as an educational tool that centers intersectionality as a practice, not as a buzzword. Over time, the Intersectionality Lab grew beyond its original scope, expanding into academic research and becoming an independent search organization.
Growth brought new questions. And those questions shaped who we are today.
The Questions That Drive Us
How much valuable research never reaches a broader, non-academic audience?
How often is knowledge produced about communities without meaningfully including them?
Which forms of knowledge are neglected, dismissed, or deemed “less valuable”?
How can we critically use existing research while questioning its foundations and blind spots?
We recognized that knowledge already exists in abundance.
The challenge is not only to engage in knowledge production, but to translate it, question it, and use it responsibly.
Why Intersectionality Matters
To address today’s challenges, we must understand the systems we live in—and their roots. Oppression is not accidental. It is structured. And it is interconnected. Everything is connected. Our identities, struggles, privileges, and barriers do not exist in isolation, they are embedded in larger systems.
We believe action requires understanding:
- Understanding societal phenomena and their daily impacts
- Understanding the history behind the concepts we use
- Understanding how power operates through language, institutions, and norms
Intersectionality helps us to understand and see these connections more clearly.
What We Do
🔎 Academic Research
We conduct critical research that examines power structures, inequality, and social transformation through an intersectional perspective.
📖 The Intersectional Dictionary
The Dictionary is a growing and adapting resource. It aims to critically break down key concepts related to gender, race, class, and oppressive systems and critically reflect its content.
Because language shapes understanding. And understanding shapes action.
🎙 The Intersectionality Lab Podcast
We want to provide a space for lived experiences, expertise, as well as for dialogue. Our podcast features:
- Unfiltered, casual conversations within our team
- Guest episodes with speakers who share their knowledge, perspectives, and stories
Knowledge is not limited for academia. It lives in everyday observations, in communities, and in personal narratives.
⚙️Development of programs
At the Intersectionality Lab – European Research Center, the community is not an “audience.” Community is our starting point.
We develop programs with communities, not merely for or about them. Our work grows out of dialogue, lived experience, and shared expertise. Because sustainable change does not happen through top-down solutions. It happens when knowledge, experience, and action meet.
Intersectional by Design
Our programs are rooted in intersectionality. That means we recognize that experiences are shaped by overlapping systems of power, such as race, gender, class, disability, sexuality, age, or/and migration status.
We intentionally design programs that:
- Reflect diverse identities and experiences
- Address structural barriers, not just individual challenges
- Create safer and more accessible spaces
- Encourage critical thinking and collective reflection
Accessibility—social, economic, physical, linguistic—is not an afterthought. It is built into the foundation of these programmes since their conception.
A Process, Not a Product
Community development is not a fixed outcome. It is an ongoing process of reflection, adaptation, and shared growth. We continuously evaluate our work, invite feedback, and remain humble to critique.
Our goal is not to “deliver solutions,” but to strengthen collective capacity, critical awareness, and long-term empowerment.
Because real transformation is built through shared responsibility, shared knowledge, and shared care.
Our Ongoing Commitment
Our path of deconstructing biases, meaning our ways of thinking, our assumptions, our positioning, has only just begun. Decolonizing knowledge and reflecting on our own role within systems of power is a continuous, never-ending process.
We are committed to transparency, reflection, and growth. As a critical and nurturing resource, we depend on feedback, dialogue, and critique. Our goal is to constantly reduce harm and increase care in the work we produce.
Our Message
Knowledge is power.
Let’s question it.
Let’s share that power.
Let’s reshape it together.
And most importantly: let’s care for one another while we do.