Even though more women researchers are coming from abroad than before, it is often more difficult for a woman to move her family to Norway, asserts researcher Ingvild Reymert.

“We didn’t think that international recruitment would influence the gender balance in academia in favour of more women in senior positions, but we were wrong,” says researcher Kaja Wendt.

Both male and female researchers with children struggle to combine career and family. The competition is coming more and more from international researchers who don't have children or access to welfare benefits such as parental leave.

Norwegian universities are much too concerned with counting international researchers and students, and they care too little about how the researchers are integrated into the environment. This is according to Julien S. Bourrelle, a research fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The number of international researchers in Norway has exploded in the past 10 years. This is in keeping with official targets, but we still know little about what this means for the future of Norwegian research.

A growing number of universities and university colleges are trying to improve more than just the gender balance. Some call it diversity, others call it inclusion or anti-discrimination, but how are the efforts going?

UiT – The Arctic University of Norway is using the prize money from the Gender Equality Award to gain new inspiration from Norway and abroad. Eight new adjunct professor positions have been created.

The vast majority of ethnic minorities in Norwegian academia are mobile researchers who have moved here to work in an academic position.

Values like equality, inclusion and diversity are being stifled by the prevailing management ideology in academia, critics note. “We must create an academic culture of compassion,” says British organizational psychologist Kathryn Waddington.

With the climate crisis as backdrop, university employees have demanded a reduction in air travel. Could cutting air travel also lead to greater gender equality?

In recent years some have asked whether the ceiling has been reached for the number of foreigners in Norwegian academia. The Young Academy of Norway would rather have a debate on how to best take advantage of this new diversity.

“You’re very visible when you’re a minority. Being noticed can be a good thing in academia, but as soon as you make a mistake, the flipside of hyper-visibility comes to the fore,” says researcher Marjan Nadim.

According to a recent study, women and men have equal chances to move up professionally in academia as a whole. There are, however, a number of systematic differences.

Women take more education than men and gain more from it. But men earn more than women regardless of education.