Maria Amparo Ballester Pastor has been a Senior Professor of Labor and Social Security Law at the University of Valencia since 2008 and advisor to the Economic and Social Council of Spain (expert by Government appointment) since 2024. She has been educated at the University of Valencia and Cornell University (United States). She directed the University Institute of Women's Studies (2016-2020) and the Chair of Feminist Economics (2018-2019), at the University of Valencia. She was vice president of EUFEM (University Platform for Feminist and Gender Studies) and co-president of the Equality Commission of the Spanish Association of Labor Law and Social Security (2018 and 2019).

Professor Ballester Pastor has dedicated a good part of her professional career to research on gender discrimination in the workplace and social security, which has been reflected in numerous publications. She has also researched employment discrimination for other reasons (particularly age), conciliation/co-responsibility/working time, rights of migrant workers, fundamental rights in the labor dimension, temporary hiring, social law of the European Union, prevention regulations of occupational risks, and Social Security.

She has carried out several comparative law investigations based on funded stays at foreign universities where she has been a visiting professor, among which Stockholm University can be highlighted (carrying out research funded in 1996 on the reform of the pension system that was later the subject of publication) or Mac Gill University in Montreal (conducting funded research in 2010 on Age and Gender Discrimination that resulted in several publications). She has been the Main Investigator in several competitive research projects, one financed with funds from the European Union (international project 'Culture, custom and gender' 2002-2004). She has been an evaluator of undergraduate and postgraduate university and teaching degrees for the Andalusian Knowledge Agency. She has been an expert in evaluating Legal Sciences teachers for the Spanish Agency of Evaluation -ANECA- (2010-2018) and has been part of various evaluation commissions for research projects in Spain and Chile. She has been an external evaluator for various legal journals and has been part of the scientific committees of many projects, conferences, and seminars.

In the field of knowledge transfer, she has collaborated with different union entities, business organizations, professional associations, local entities, regional administrations, and other types of entities in the transference of research results. She has been part of the teams that have prepared three bills registered in the Congress of Deputies: a bill for equal pay between women and men (registered in October 2017), a bill against precariousness and for employment stability (registered in June 2018) and a bill on co-responsible working time (registered in November 2018).

Outside the strict university environment, her professional activity has had various aspects: She was a substitute Judge of the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community from 1996 to 2015. From 2015 to 2019 she was part of the European Network of Legal Experts in Gender Equality and non-discrimination, an advisory body to the European Commission on gender matters. Between 2020 and 2023 she carried out senior positions in the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy of Spain: From 2020 to 2021 she was the Chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Labor and Social Economy of Spain. And, from April 2021 to November 2023, she was the Chief of Legal Coordination of the Second Vice President of the Government. During her years of activity in the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy, she participated in the negotiation and preparation of legal regulations, including, among others, RD 901/2020 on equality plans; RD 902/2020 on equal pay; RDL 28/2020, on remote work; RDL 9/2021, known as the "rider" law; or RDL 32/2021 on labor reform.

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

[Biography, english version]

Marcela Jabbaz Churba, PhD in Sociology from the University of Valencia. She was a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET) in Argentina, director of the Centre for Organizational Studies at the University of Buenos Aires and Lecturer in the same university.

She has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses at different universities in Argentina. Since December 2010 she is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia in the areas of Research Methodology and Sociology of Gender. She also teaches in-service training courses on Inclusion of Gender Perspective in Public Administration  to civil servants of different departments.

Her lines of research and her scientific production are related to gender studies (gender gaps, divorce and child custody, equality policies) and intercultural diversity. As a feminist activist, she is member of the Federación de Mujeres Progresistas.  

Some recent publications are:

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela; Inés Soler Julve; Mónica Gil Junquero y Beatriz Belando Garín (2023). Informes d’impacte de gènere en la normativa universitària: guia de recomanacions i bones pràctiques en les universitats de la Xarxa Vives. Xarxa Vives d’Unitversitats: Universitat Jaume I.

Lozano, Claudia y Marcela Jabbaz Churba (2023). La decisión de emigrar o retornar: La percepción de las diferencias entre sistemas científicos en trayectorias científicas internacionales. Revista Iberoamericana De Ciencia, Tecnología Y Sociedad. Retrieved from https://ojs.revistacts.net/index.php/CTS/article/view/529

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela (2023). Las políticas de igualdad en la Unión Europea: Fases, perspectivas y agenda, en Bar Cendón, Antonio; Martínez López-Sáez, Mónica (coord.), La Unión Europea ante la crisis: Derechos, valores, seguridad y defensa. Madrid: Aranzadi.

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela (2023). Brecha salarial de género en la Universitat de València /2021. https://www.uv.es/igualtat/webnova2014/INFORME_BSG.pdf ISBN 978-84-09-50315-5.

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela; Mónica Gil Junquero e Inés Soler Julve (2022). Informes de impacto de género en la normativa universitaria. Herramientas y estrategia para su implementación en la Universitat de València. ISBN 978-84-09-46756-3 https://www.uv.es/igualtat/webnova2014/Guia_EIG.pdf

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela y Juan Antonio Rodríguez-del-Pino (2022). A visceral method to study gender-based violence among youth. Analise Social, 243, LVII (2), 232 - 255. https://doi.org/10.31447/AS00032573.2022243.02

Rodríguez del Pino, Juan A. y Marcela Jabbaz Churba (2022). Deconstruyendo machos, construyendo personas. Relatos de la masculinidad hegemónica en España, Revista de Estudios Sociales, 79, 108-124. https://doi.org/10.7440/res79.2022.07

Soronellas Masdeu, Montserrat; Carmen Gregorio Gil y Marcela Jabbaz Churba (2022). ¡Apáñatelas como puedas! Dilemas morales en el cuidado familiar de personas dependientes durante la pandemia. Disparidades, Revista de Antropología, 77, 1–9, DOI: https://doi.org/10.3989/dra.2022.001b

Soronellas, Montserrat y Marcela Jabbaz (2022). Cuidadoras familiares frente al shock pandémico (pp. 93-145). En Dolors Comas-d'Argemir y Silvia Bofill-Poch (eds) Cuidar a mayores y dependientes en tiempos de la covid-19, Valencia(Espanya): Tirant Lo Blanch

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela (2021). Custody and Care of Children in Spain: Can the Two Rights be Reconciled? Feminist Legal Studies, 29, Springer-Nature, 351-373. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10691-021-09466-2

Samper Gras, Teresa; Marcela Jabbaz; Sergio Tomás y Andrea Ferrer (2021). ¡No son las criaturas, es la academia! Brechas salariales de género y carrera investigadora en la universidad. Asparkía. Investigación feminista 39, 165-184

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela (2021). Infancia alterada en pleitos por la custodia de menores. Áreas. Revista Internacional de Ciencias Sociales, 42, 39-50.

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela (2021). ¿Participa el funcionariado de las políticas de igualdad? La importancia de su implicación en los informes de impacto de género. En Juan A. Rodríguez del Pino y María Angeles Abellán (eds). Participación y sostenibilidad en la sociedad valenciana, Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch.

Jabbaz Churba, Marcela y Capitolina Díaz Martínez (2020). Menores en disputa. Custodia, visitas y patria potestad en la Comunidad Valenciana. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 220 p.

Marcela Jabbaz Churba; Teresa Samper-Gras y Capitolina Díaz Martínez (2019). La brecha salarial de género en las instituciones científicas. Estudio de caso. Convergencia, Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 80, 1-27.

Marcela Jabbaz Churba y Capitolina Díaz Martínez (2019). Menores en disputa. Custodia, visitas y patria potestad en la Comunidad Valenciana. Madrid: Tirant lo Blanch

Marcela Jabbaz Churba; Juan Antonio Rodríguez del Pino y Nina Navaja Pertegás (eds) (2019). Miradas de género: Una sociología sin barreras, cerraduras ni cerrojos. Barcelona: Icaria.

Marcela Jabbaz Churba (2019). Gender perceptions and conditioning in the life and career aspirations of young people. The case of Valencia. DG Justice, EU. http://freetochoose.eu/project/coming-out-spain-report/

Marcela Jabbaz Churba y Capitolina Díaz Martínez (2017). La implementación de políticas de igualdad de género en las administraciones públicas. Madrid: Tirant Lo Blanch.

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Ruth M. Mestre i Mestre, professor of philosophy of law and member of the Institut de drets humans of the University of Valencia, is a specialist in Feminist Theory of Law and forms part of the European Network of Experts in the field of Gender Equality.

She coordinated with S. Jonhsdotter the report FGM in Europe: An analysis of Court Cases, at the request of the European Commission (published by the European Commission-Directorate General-Justice (2016).

In addition, she has been lead researcher of the Project Democracy and political participation of women. A Critical comparison of new analysis and strategies, funded by the Ministry of Equality. She has also been main researcher  in the Spanish state of the DAPHNE project - EURONET, funded by the Daphne programme of the EU, to draw up plans of action against FGM.

Doctor in law by the Universitat de Valencia, she holds a master's degree in legal sociology from the International Institute of Juridical sociology of Oñati and a master's degree in theory of law by the Académie Européenne de Théorie du Droit, Brussels. He has been Marie Curie Fellow at the Centre for research in ethnic relations University of Warwick (UK). He has participated in numerous research projects in the Spanish state and in two Daphne projects (EU) on Mutilation/cutting Female Genitals in Europe.

Among his publications include the articles written together with Sara Johnsdotter, Court cases, cultural expertise and FGM in Europe, Studies in Law, Politics and Society, Vol 78, 2019, Special Issue Cultural Expertise and socio-legal studies (Austin Sarat, ed.) and FGM in Europe. Public discourse vs. empirical evidence, International Journal of Law, crime and Justice, 51, 2017. His books include La Caixa de Pandora. Introduction to feminist legal theory, PUV, 2006, and the coordination of two collective books: Women, rights and citizenship, Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia 2009 and, together with Yanira Zúñiga, Democracy and Women's political participation. Visions from Europe and Latin America, Tirant lo Blanch, 2013; Democracy and political participation of women. Critical study comparison of new analysis and strategies, Instituto de la Mujer, 2014, http://www.inmujer.gob.es/areasTematicas/estudios/estudioslinea2014/Home.htm; or  articles in edited books as 'The faces of prostitution in the Spanish state: between migration laws and the criminal code, in R. Osborne: sex workers. Rights, migration and traffic in the S. XXI, Ed. Bellaterra, 2004.

In the field of post-graduate teaching she is currently a professor at the Master in Human Rights, Democracy and Jusiticia International of the Facultat de dret of the Universitat de Valencia, the Master of Agents of Equality of the Universitat de Valencia and the Masters of the Equality of women and men of the University of the Basque Country. She has lectured also, by way of example, in the European Master of Human Rights (Venice, Italy), in the Phd in human Rights and Globalisation at the University Pablo de Olavide (Seville), or in the Course of specialization in human rights from the Andean University of Ecuador.

She has been Director of the Legal Clinic for Social Justice of the University of Valencia and vice-president of the European Network of Clinical Legal Education (ENCLE). She is currently Delegate of the Revice-rector in the field of diversity at the Universitat de Valencia

[Biography, english version]

Lecturer at the Faculty of Economics and Business Studies. Coordinator of the Gender, Sustainability and ICTs Microcluster. Dr Unidad de Investigación Economía Feminista (Feminist Economics Research Unit) http://go.uv.es/WU0RjTt . Member of the Institut Universitari d Estudis de les Dones, Universitat de València (Spain). PhD Cum Laude in Economics from the Universitat de València. Research on a just transition towards a Feminist Economy: Ethics of care and sustainability of life, Social Sustainability and Circular Economy, Feminist Theory and Economics, Household employment, Formal and informal labour markets, Income poverty and capability deprivation, Macroeconomic context, Non androcentric indicators, Migrations, Equality policies. Women, times and jobs, Globalisation, cooperation and migrations and Innovation, among others. Specialised teaching in Feminist Economics in Degree: Work and Gender; Globalisation, cooperation and Development from a gender perspective; Gender relations, citizenship and society: Feminist Economic Thought. Specialised teaching in Feminist Economics in the Master's Degree in Gender and Equality Policies and Doctorate. Stays in International Centres: University of Bristol (UK), UNAM (Mexico DF), among others. Recent research awarded in the Feminist and Equality Studies Prize. Aragonese Women's Institute.

[Biography, english version]