An award with many possibilities
What have the millions of kroner from the Ministry’s Gender Equality Award been used for and what are the results? We asked this question of the previous years’ winners.
What have the millions of kroner from the Ministry’s Gender Equality Award been used for and what are the results? We asked this question of the previous years’ winners.
For 10 years the allocation to the Committee for Gender Balance in Research had not been increased or adjusted for inflation. Now for the first time ever, the committee will receive a budget increase from the Norwegian government.
Elisabeth Isaksson’s research field has been filled with bearded old men throughout its history, and up until the 1990s female researchers were denied access to stations in the polar region. But something has changed.
Despite formal rights and gender equality measures, women in academia still hit their heads against a wall, according to Associate Professor Randi Gressgård.
For 10 years the KIF Committee has worked to improve gender balance in the research sector. The new committee has been expanded by three members and will have a broader sphere of responsibility beginning this spring.
Gender balance is as much a question of quality as of fairness. This is a basic principle in the Research Council of Norway’s new gender equality policy which states that at least 40 percent of project managers must be women.
“I’ve never met a female associate professor who says that she doesn’t want to be a full professor,” says Curt Rice, the new chair of the Committee for Gender Balance in Research.
The winner of this year’s Gender Equality Award, Simula Research Laboratory, is applauded for its outstanding progress and well-integrated plans for gender equality. But the institute could have an even higher level of ambition, according to the KIF Committee’s recommendation.
“Having a system for how to handle complaints about sexual harassment has a preventive effect. Most organizations don’t have the expertise or systems in place to deal with cases like these,” says Ståle Einarsen.
The network at Østfold University College is bearing fruit. A book and a mentoring scheme for women were recently launched. The network was also the driving force behind the professorship grant established for both genders.
According to the science hierarchy, sociology has low status whereas mathematics has high status. Both this hierarchy and the peer-review process have characteristics that structurally downgrade women’s position in academia.
A Norwegian gender equality committee won the poster competition at a large EU conference held recently in Brussels. The winning poster was “Mission: Gender Balance”.
Uppsala University in Sweden is proud of its new tool that reveals gender balance at the touch of a keyboard. Gudrun Schyman of the Feminist Initiative is positive towards the tool, as are Ministers Tora Aasland and Audun Lysbakken. Norwegian educational institutions, however, seem sceptical.
The Norwegian Government’s national budget for 2012 does not allocate any funding to the Research Council of Norway’s initiative on Gender Balance in Senior Positions and Research Management (BALANSE). Executive Director Anders Hanneborg confirms that the initiative is in danger of being discontinued.