An important initiative
The rectors of Norwegian universities and university colleges welcome the Research Council’s new initiative to promote women in research.
The rectors of Norwegian universities and university colleges welcome the Research Council’s new initiative to promote women in research.
We need to know more about the recruitment processes in the research sector. This is the message that came through loud and clear when the Research Council of Norway held a workshop on the factors that impede gender balance at the upper levels of research.
If we continue at the current pace, it will take 75 years before half of the senior academic positions are held by women. Norwegian Minister of Research and Higher Education Tora Aasland believes the institutions have a duty to adopt action plans that speed up the progress.
Five of the 14 Centres for Research-based Innovation (SFI) in Norway do not have women on their boards.
“We are very pleased because we have worked systematically to promote gender equality,” says Eli Bergsvik, Rector of Bergen University College.
The government won’t stop at earmarking posts for female scientists. Now Tora Aasland states that the goal is to change the EU regulations concerning this issue.
The corporate world needs more scientists, but few young people choose a career in science. Will we finally break the science code?
The work on standardising the workday of European scientists may further gender equality in the research sector, if a gender perspective is employed, says the Committee for Mainstreaming – Women in Science in Norway.
"We have to be prepared to take on the great challenges and possibilities that exist for technologists in the High North," says Kirsti Hienn. She is the project manager of the Moment network for female technologists.
The female-dominated study programmes at public university colleges have far fewer professorships than the male-dominated ones. Those professorships that do exist are mainly held by men. This is revealed in a recent survey from the Norwegian Social Science Data Services. The figures are collected on behalf of the Committee for Mainstreaming – Women in Science.
In its proposition for the National budget, which was presented in the beginning of October, the Government states that it wants to focus on earmarking of academic posts for women.
What mechanisms lie behind who gets a career in physics and who leaves academia for other kinds of employment? What role does the workplace culture play in this? These and similar issues are being studied in an ongoing EU-project.
Minister of Education and Research Tora Aasland promises to reintroduce earmarking of posts for women in academia in 2009.
For almost five years Norway has had a national committee for gender equality in science. It has placed women in science on the agenda both with the authorities and the research sector.