A gender-balanced educational system, eradication of gender stereotyping and equal opportunities for both parents to pursue a career. This is where the focus must lie according to a new manifesto from the UN initiative Gender Diversity Roundtable, which DTU President Anders Bjarklev is a member of along with fifteen other Danish top executives.
“A better gender balance in our society is a vital necessity, not only because it’s the right thing and fair, but also because a diverse culture creates better results for society,” says Anders Bjarklev.
The manifesto from the Gender Diversity Roundtable concludes that there is still much to be done before we even approach gender equality, and Anders Bjarklev recognizes this description.
“DTU has had gender equality on the agenda for a number of years by now, and we’ve implemented and also planned a number of initiatives to attract more female researchers and students and create greater equality and diversity. But we also have to admit that it’s a long, hard haul and that the results so far are not satisfactory,” he says.
Out of DTU’s close to 200 professors, 13 per cent are women against 10 per cent in 2016. Among associate professors and assistant professors, the share of women was 17 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, in 2018, which is largely unchanged compared to 2016. In summer 2018, 33 per cent of the students admitted to DTU’s BSc Eng programme were women.
“The engineering profession is perceived by many as a male profession, and in recent years we’ve therefore implemented a number of initiatives aimed at making DTU more attractive to women who want to study engineering. An IT mentor programme for female high school students with an interest in the natural sciences resulted in positive feedback from the participants, and after mapping our recruitment materials, we’ve produced new videos and adapted our course catalogue so that there is a broader focus on women and diversity,” says Anders Bjarklev.
In 2018, DTU prepared a guide with recommendations and points of attention in relation to recruitment of women for DTU’s study programmes, and the University participated in the nationwide initiative Girls’ Day in Science for the first time, which attracted a total of 240 participants. Finally, DTU hosted an IT camp for female high school students in summer 2018, which got positive feedback from the participants.
When it comes to recruiting and retaining female researchers, DTU is working to attract more women to the assessment committees, according to Anders Bjarklev. The challenge is to avoid putting so much pressure on the female researchers that it affects their career negatively, because they get less time for research.
In 2019, all DTU’s research salaries will be reviewed to determine whether there are examples of gender-based disparity in the salaries. If this is the case, the relevant salaries will be adjusted, according to Anders Bjarklev.
Finally, a long parental leave may delay a research career, and as women usually take longer parental leave than men do, it takes longer for women to reach the same employment level as men.
“We’re therefore working on a structure for how we can help both women and men return from parental leave and resume their research more quickly,” says the DTU President.