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

“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.

Our readers were most concerned about the fact that women take on the majority of academic housework – the service work in academia.

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.

Norwegian researcher networks in fields with an uneven gender balance can once again apply for financial support from the Committee for Gender Balance in Research (KIF). The application deadline is November 1st.

In 2007, the rector of the Norwegian Academy of Music said the institution would implement measures to improve the uneven gender balance among academic employees. He cited figures showing that only three professors were women while 41 were men. Now as 2011 draws to a close, only seven professors are women and 53 are men. Minister Tora Aasland is not pleased.

It pays to be keenly aware of how you use your time. This is according to Siv Ellen Kraft, a recently appointed professor at the University of Tromsø.

Gender equality activities are crucial for achieving the ambitious plans to enhance quality and expertise at Bergen University College. Last year the institution received the Gender Equality Award presented by the Ministry of Education and Research, and they are encouraging others to apply for the award this year.

A record number of women want to study technology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). More men are applying for pre-school teacher training. But most students still make traditional choices.

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.