There is a large body of research on the barriers to gender balance in academia, but very little on ethnic diversity. Now the KIF Committee has announced funding for a study to fill this gap.

The KIF Committee’s strategy for its work with gender balance and ethnic diversity in research up to 2017 has been completed. Feedback from the sector shows that the institutions appreciate the committee’s active role, but they would like a clearer definition of “ethnic diversity”.

When the Research Council recently selected 17 new Centres for Research-driven Innovation, one-third of them had women at the helm. According to the Research Council, an awareness-raising campaign was the main reason for the increase.

“If Norwegian researchers do a better job of fulfilling the EU requirements on gender perspectives in research, they will have a competitive advantage in Horizon 2020,” says Curt Rice.

There are sound legal arguments both for and against allowing the niqab to be worn at higher education institutions. A ban can send a clear signal in support of gender equality, but it can also be exclusionary and lead to more extreme attitudes.

It is more difficult for women to meet the requirements to qualify for tenure track positions, according to one researcher.

When the daily newspaper VG presented Norway’s top 20 economists, there was not a single woman among them. “Economics is a male-dominated field,” states economist Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe of the University of Oslo.

She is future oriented in her work to bring diversity and change to the IT field, but Oda Award winner Beathe Due thinks it is just as important to be aware of the past when working for change. “It’s worth remembering that information technology has not always been a man’s field,” says Due.

Now that government award schemes for gender equality efforts in academia have been discontinued, it is up to each individual institution to improve the gender balance in senior-level academic positions.

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.

The annual Gender Equality Award for gender balance in research is history. “It’s unfortunate to lose the opportunity to recognize those who have worked hard with an important and often difficult field,” says Curt Rice, Chair of the KIF Committee.

Women with natural science and technology degrees experience maladjustment more often than their male colleagues when transitioning from master’s studies to working life, according to a new report. This is not the case for other scientific fields.

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?