21 April 2026 10:00-12:00 CEST | Organizer: REASA
Building on a 2023 multistakeholder dialogue co-convened by GENDRO and the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), the international SAGER-Ethics Working Group (established in March 2025) aims to harmonise and institutionalise practices responsive to sex and gender within research. By developing the SAGER-Ethics guidelines through inclusive and diverse consultations, translating ethical principles into practical tools, helping researchers design stronger protocols and enabling RECs and IRBs to identify gaps early in the research process. The Declaration of Helsinki and the CIOMS guidelines outline the ethical principles of respect for people, justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, scientific and social value, transparency, and accountability, which the SAGER-Ethics guidelines seek to strengthen through the view of sex and gender.
Please register here for the event: The Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines – Fill out form. Attendance is free
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
Dr Shirin Heidari is the Founder and Executive Director of GENDRO, a Geneva-based international non-profit association dedicated to addressing gender bias in research and data. She is the lead author of the widely adopted Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines, a key instrument for closing gender evidence gaps. Through GENDRO, she provides technical support to research organisations and global health bodies, including the World Health Organization, to strengthen the integration of sex and gender dimensions in health research, policy, and programming.
She is also Principal Investigator of the Liminality Research Consortium at the Gender Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute, where she leads a collaborative multi-country project on sexual and reproductive health and rights in forced displacement, grounded in an intersectional feminist approach.
Previously, Dr Heidari served as Executive Director of Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters and Editor-in-Chief of its journal. At the International AIDS Society, she led the Research Promotion Department, advancing pioneering initiatives on women’s health, including a consensus research agenda on HIV and women, and served as Editor of the Journal of the International AIDS Society.
She holds a PhD in clinical virology and experimental oncology from Karolinska Institute (2001) and has worked across research, policy, and advocacy in non-profit organisations, academia, and UN agencies. She has served as Board Member of Amnesty International Sweden, Council member of the European Association of Science Editors and founding chair of its Gender Policy Committee, member of the Impact Committee of the Human Immunome Project and Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Women, Power, and Cancer. She currently serves as Co–Vice President of the Foundation Board of the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights.
A TEDx speaker and author of numerous publications, Dr Heidari was recognised in 2022 as one of twelve influential figures shaping the future of International Geneva. Her work was profiled in Cell in 2024, and The Lancet in 2025.
Prof Mantoa Mokhachane, FCPaeds, PhD, has served as Director of the UUME since 2020. Before transitioning into medical education in 2015, she spent 18 years practising as a neonatologist. She was a member for the Wits HREC for many years. Her scholarly interests lie in epistemic justice and the use of decolonial approaches within medical education. Her paper, “Rethinking Professional Identity Formation Amidst Protest and Social Upheaval: A Journey in Africa,” received the Research Paper Prize at the AMEE Conference in France in 2022. In January 2026, she delivered an invited lecture titled “White Saviourism” during the Global International Child Health programme at the University of Münster in Germany. She has recently contributed book chapters on “Future Directions and Disruptive Innovations in Medical Professionalism” and “A Vernacular Reframing of Professionalism: Ubuntu in the Education of the Next Generation of Professionals.” She is also a member of the SAGER Working Group, which recently published a letter in The Lancet titled “Safeguarding Research Integrity: SAGER Guidelines, Research Ethics, and the Politics of Evidence.” In addition, she serves as part of the Guest Editorial team leading an article collection on “Challenging Dominant Discourses of Professionalism Through Decolonial, Relational, and Contextually Grounded Perspectives.”
Dr Ann George is a Senior Lecturer: Curriculum and Faculty Development in the Centre for Health Science Education at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ann holds a PhD in Science Education and is a C2-rated researcher [South African National Research Foundation (NRF), 2024], indicating an established researcher with a sustained record of productivity. Ann received the Vice-Chancellor’s Team-Teaching Award and Faculty of Health Sciences PV Tobias and Convocation Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2022 and the Best Publication Award 2023 from the Southern African Association for Health Professions Educationalists (SAAHE). She was a Female Academic Leaders Fellowship (FALF) Chancellor’s Fellow in 2021, which led to her current Africa Oxford Initiative (AfOx) Visiting Fellowship at Oxford University. She chairs the SAAHE Research Significant Interest Group, is a Deputy Editor for the journal Human Resources for Health, and an Associate Editor for Advances in Health Sciences Education. Ann co-authored the book chapter “A Vernacular Reframing of Professionalism: Ubuntu in the Education of the Next Generation of Professionals.” She is also a member of the SAGER Working Group, which recently published the letter “Safeguarding Research Integrity: SAGER Guidelines, Research Ethics, and the Politics of Evidence” in The Lancet. As a guest editor for Frontiers in Medicine, Ann is currently co-hosting the collection entitled “Challenging Dominant Discourses of Professionalism Through Decolonial, Relational, and Contextually Grounded Perspectives.”