According to a new study by the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), female researchers are cited less often than their male colleagues.

Representatives to the Norwegian Parliament applaud the Research Council’s grant scheme to promote women in research, but will not guarantee allocations for the project.

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.

Numbers suggest that women are lagging behind in Norwegian innovation. A narrow and outdated definition of innovation explains why, says Elisabet Ljunggren at Nordland Research Institute.

Female professors feel that they spend more time teaching after the introduction of the Quality Reform, the Norwegian follow-up to the Bologna Declaration. Women, to a larger degree than men, also say that the reform has changed their methods of teaching.

The University of Oslo is the first scholarly institution that has looked at its budgets from a gender equality perspective. The survey suggests that male researchers at the University get more money than their female colleagues.

The Ministry of Education and Research has established a new gender equality award worth two million Norwegian kroner. The award will go to the institution that has done the most to promote women in science.

Women leave the field of science, both during and after the studies. But why? A new research project at the University of Oslo aims to find out.

The Ministry of Education and Research in Norway has appointed a new Committee for Mainstreaming – Women in Science. The new committee will be chaired by pro-rector Gerd Bjørhovde, and its period of office will extend until 1 April 2010.

An abridged version of the final report from the Committee for Mainstreaming – Women in Science in Norway is now available in English. The report is entitled Gender balance in higher education and research – golden opportunities.