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.

If you want to succeed as a researcher, you must not prioritize your family. This is one of the findings in a new Swedish report. In Norway, we are seeing the same trend.

Norway’s new official report on equality says little about the problem of the low percentage of women in senior academic positions, but it presents a solid analysis of equality policy and makes some radical proposals.

SINTEF thinks it is positive, for both the working environment and the academic sphere, to ask about sexual harassment on employee surveys.

The Committee for Gender Balance in Research has been appointed until the end of 2013, but what will happen after that? Minister of Education and Research Kristin Halvorsen is now indicating that the committee will be extended for another term.

“We are now putting more emphasis on the gender perspective in research and education,” says Vice Rector Curt Rice. After several years of working with gender equality in the personnel area, the University of Tromsø is directing its gender equality efforts towards the research itself.

A new study from the University of Oslo sheds light on women’s career opportunities at the university. The study took its point of departure in an evaluation of the mentor scheme.

Sexual harassment will not be addressed on the new national working environment survey for the higher education sector. The chair of the Committee for Gender Balance in Research is disappointed.

Sexual harassment in the workplace can get worse if nobody asks about it, according to one researcher. Her view is supported by Swedish educational institutions. Uppsala University has trained more than 3,000 employees about sexual harassment in the past nine years. And the demand for knowledge is growing.

“Asking about sexual harassment is one of our legal duties,” says the Equality and Anti-discrimination Ombud.

When Solveig wanted to switch her major from English to natural science, the professor for the class was so distressed about getting yet another female student that he tried to scare her away. “It’s so difficult. There are many who die,” he said.

Physics has a reputation as being only for the stereotypical nerds. According to science education researcher Maria Vetleseter Bøe, that is unfortunate both for the field and for everyone who misses out on the chance to find out how much fun physics is.