Gender Links aims to build on and leverage cutting edge research work that has had a catalytic effect in transforming gender relations in and through the media.

GL in partnership with the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) conducted the first ever Gender and Media Baseline Study (GMBS) in the region. The GMBS has led to several innovative research and initiatives including:

• In 2001 Gender Links worked on a project to engender Broadcast Legislation.
• An Audience Research project that focuses on how women and men who consume news inter act with its content.
• Mirror on the media monitoring series to track how gender is reflected in media coverage.
• The Southern African Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) which measured the Southern Africa's media performance against the GMBS and the findings of the global GMMP.
• Gender Links reviewed twenty Freedom of expression and Media NGOs to assess the extent to which gender is integrated into their work.
• A comprehensive HIV and AIDS and Gender Baseline Study that was conducted in 2005. In 2007 the study was extended to three francophone countries, Madasgar, the DRC and Seychelles.
• Gender Links collaborated with the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) in the research and production of the Glass Ceiling Report Two.
  
• In 2008 Gender Links extended the glass ceiling research to the Southern African region. The regional report and country pamphlets were published and launched in August 2009.