The Diversity Report has finally been launched, and the Ministry of Education and Research is pleased with the result.

The Norwegian Government has recommended consolidating the Gender Equality Act and three anti-discrimination laws into a joint anti-discrimination act. According to the KIF Committee, there are several reasons why this is not an ideal proposal.

The proposal to create a joint anti-discrimination law will weaken the employer’s reporting duty, and thereby weaken all efforts to promote gender equality. This is the view of both the Equality and Anti-discrimination Ombudsman and the Vice Chair of the Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research.

Not necessarily, according to researchers. More women than men do research on gender, but all female researchers are not concerned with gender.

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.

The Norwegian Government presented the white paper “Gender equality in practice” in early October. While the report gives a thorough account of the situation in academia, it lacks both measures and money for gender equality efforts.

Oslo is the city in Norway with the greatest ethnic diversity, but a lack of good statistics makes it hard to design effective, targeted measures to ensure diversity.

“The diversity study now underway in Norway is a ground-breaking project,” states Paula Mählck of Stockholm University.

The structural reform of the Norwegian higher education sector is well underway, and several institutions are in the midst of major consolidation processes. What happens to gender equality efforts when institutions are merged?

Female researchers publish less than their male colleagues. But according to a new study, this is mainly because women tend to have lower positions in the academic hierarchy.

Research on ethnic minorities in academia is mostly non-existent in Norway. Now the research institutes AFI and NIFU have been commissioned to remedy this situation.

The Norwegian police academy has long sought to increase diversity among the student body and the future police force. Since 2012, they have been working systematically with recruitment to achieve this.

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”.