If you want to create the best research results and win the most prestigious grants, having a homogenous research group puts you at a disadvantage. This is the opinion of department heads Mette Wier and Søren Linderoth from DTU Management and DTU Energy, respectively.
So for a number of years, they have worked actively to find more qualified female applicants when they open a new research position. At DTU Energy, the focus has been on assistant and associate professor positions, while at DTU Management the focus has been on professor positions.
“There has always been an overrepresentation of men in STEM subjects, so the task was to make the recruitment process active and externally oriented. This has been necessary to attract more female talent—also from international environments,” says Mette Wier.
Upon her appointment in 2018, she questioned the number of female professors at DTU Management. Back then, only 3 out of 17 professors were women—corresponding to a share of 17 per cent.
“It was important for me to boost diversity, because different people can bring different perspectives and approaches that generate great professional value,” she says.
Active recruitment
Søren Linderoth agrees with this view. He believes that a broad representation is important for the quality of research.
“We’ll have fewer blind spots, more unique solutions, and more opportunities to excel in our field,” he says.
Diversity is about much more than gender, but since there has historically been an imbalance between men and women at DTU, for example among professors, this is one of the areas where the organization has chosen to take action.
Therefore, DTU Management and DTU Energy have introduced outreach recruitment programmes of up to six months duration, searching especially for qualified female candidates.
Networks, talent scouts, and partners are involved in the search process, conferences and relevant professional environments are actively managed, and searches are conducted at home and abroad, at universities and in industry.
The dogma is to target a wide external field. And at DTU Energy, the position is only advertised when there is at least one potential female applicant in the field.
The best gets the job
The departments’ approach reflects a strategic effort that DTU’s Executive Board, headed by President Anders Bjarklev, has focused increasingly on in recent years.
“DTU must be an attractive and modern workplace for both men and women. Female talent is underrepresented in engineering, so we need to make an extra effort to find - and retain - them,” he says.
To accelerate this development, DTU’s Executive Board has decided that the field of candidates for new professorships must always include at least one qualified candidate of the underrepresented gender.
All possibilities must be explored by the department and the requirement can only be waived if it proves impossible to find anyone qualified.
“We believe and can see that investing in the recruitment process makes a difference. Through outreach work, you can find unique talent that wouldn’t otherwise have found their way to DTU,” says Anders Bjarklev.
He also emphasizes that the final appointment, which is the responsibility of DTU’s Executive Board, is based solely on qualifications.
“When the candidate field is in place, we disregard whether you are male or female and hire the best. This is not about favouring anyone over anyone else. It’s about creating equal opportunities for everyone and delivering world-class research,” says Anders Bjarklev.
Doubling the number of female professors
At both DTU Management and DTU Energy, the efforts have resulted in more female talent in the overall research group.
Since Mette Wier started the recruitment outreach for professorships in 2018, DTU Management has doubled the proportion of female professors. Today, 9 out of 26 professors are women, corresponding to a share of 35 per cent.
Meanwhile, several broad academic environments have emerged, more international research talent has been added, and the annual intake of external funding has doubled.
“We are a stronger department today, both when it comes to providing excellent research and when it comes to international impact. We’re constantly evolving because we have a broad field of research talent - both in terms of gender and culture,” says Mette Wier.
Goal is not a 50/50 split
At DTU Energy, the number of female academic staff has also doubled. In three years, the department has gone from having three to now having six female academic staff, covering assistant professors, associate professors, and one professor.
This corresponds to a share of women of 13 per cent, which according to Head of Department Søren Linderoth is “far from the goal”. However, he emphasizes that the goal is not necessarily a 50/50 gender split, as female talent in the energy field makes up a small proportion of the overall talent pool.
He believes that the goal rather should be to give the existing field the opportunity to apply, so the department can create an excellent research environment.
“And that’s where we’re making progress,” he says and elaborates:
“We get talented applicants we wouldn’t have gotten before, and we notice that interest in our department is increasing. The expectation is that our focus on talent recruitment will shine through even more in the coming years—also in our research performance.”
The President: “Address blind spots”
If you look at DTU, the number of women are increasing, both among students and PhD students, where in recent years there has been a share of women of 30 per cent or more. But also among professors, where 42 per cent of new hires in 2024 were women, and among heads of department, where the last five hires have been women. Finally, three out of seven members of DTU’s Executive Board are women, while six out of ten members of DTU’s Board of Governors are women.
The development pleases Anders Bjarklev, who “feels lucky that the right candidates have been there at the right time.” He believes this will continue.
“There are simply more women in the system, and it shows. The proportion of young talent, coupled with the role models at the top, is a key to attracting more female talent from outside and retaining those already here,” he says.
He urges employees and managers to contribute constructively to the development and to be active and proactive when blind spots get in the way.
“What is obvious to most people today was not necessarily obvious a few years ago. This also means that there can still be blind spots, and I would love to hear about them. We need to work together to improve, and we need a culture where we can talk openly with each other about both challenges and solutions,” concludes Anders Bjarklev.
