Will be the Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity
The KIF Committee has been given a new name and mandate by the Ministry of Education and Research.
The full name of KIF has been changed from the Committee for Gender Balance in Research to the Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research. According to the Ministry of Education and Research, the committee’s main focus will now be on gender and ethnicity.
We have previously written that a new, larger committee has been appointed (New committee with gender+) and that the KIF Committee has received a budget increase for the first time ever (A small victory for the committee). Now a new mandate is in place as well.
While the three previous committees have worked with gender equality and gender balance in the research sector, the current committee has even more extensive tasks.
Four thematic areas
The task of the new Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research can be divided into four thematic areas:
- Gender balance
- Ethnicity
- Gender perspectives
- Diversity perspectives
The KIF Committee will target its efforts towards personnel as well as the research system – and towards research activity itself. The Ministry of Education and Research emphasizes that the committee will prioritize efforts related to gender and ethnicity.
The mandate states:
The Committee shall support and give recommendations regarding measures that promote the integration of gender balance and diversity activities at universities, university colleges and research institutes, thus helping to increase diversity among the staff and in research.
“Now it is up to the committee to interpret the mandate and devise a strategy for the committee’s term. This is even more crucial now since the mandate has been expanded,” says Hege E. Løvbak, who works in the KIF Committee’s secretariat.
The new KIF Committee was appointed in January 2014, and soon after the Ministry of Education and Research indicated that the committee’s mandate would be expanded to include diversity. The committee has met twice so far this year, and presented its proposal for the new mandate in June.
Translated by Connie Stultz.
The government-appointed KIF Committee was first launched in 2004 as the Committee for Mainstreaming – Women in Science. After two terms the name was changed to the Committee for Gender Balance in Research.
The fourth KIF Committee was appointed as from 1 January 2014 and will sit until the end of 2017. Along with a new mandate, the committee has been given a new name: the Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research.
