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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

All research institutions that work with gender balance and diversity should be familiar with the KIF Committee.

Vague, subjective assessments and stereotypes that we don’t even know we have can negatively impact the hiring process. The good news is that there are measures to counteract this.

Candidates for NTNU’s management positions must now document that they have competency in gender equality. But what kind of competency are we really talking about?

Two new research centres will try to find the solution to the gender imbalance in Nordic academia.