Gender experts and researchers will present four new and innovative ways of working to improve gender balance in research and foster institutional change.
Program:
12 Recommendations & measures to improve gender balance in academia
The Programme on Gender Balance in Senior Positions and Research Management (BALANSE) is a policy-oriented programme at the Research Council with a ten-year programme period (2012–2022) and a total budget of 15 million € (and which has recently also been extended).
In light of experience gained under the Programme/BALANSE, the Research Council has compiled 12 recommendations and measures for improving gender balance in academia. These recommendations and measures have been shown to have a clear, positive effect and can be implemented by all institutions and organisations. However, there is no easy fix to achieving gender balance; the most pivotal factor is ensuring that the management at all levels is united in the effort to address gender balance.
Presented by: Ingeborg W. Owesen, senior advisor at RCN and coordinator for the BALANSE-programme. Owesen holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oslo, and has recently published The Genealogy of Feminist Thinking, Routledge, 2021.
The Balancinator
The UiT Gender Balancinator for Organizations is a free and open-source software to visualize distribution of men and women within a specific unit. It was originally created in 2020 by Lilli Mittner & Matthias Mittner. The Balancinator allows anyone to build generic plots by inserting simple excel sheets instead of writing programming code: Balancinator | UiT
Presented by: Lilli Mittner and Matthias Mittner.
Lilli Mittner is a researcher in situated art intervention research at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Mittner received her PhD in 2014 from the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover. She is leading the work package on qualitative data in the research and intervention project ‘Prestige. Gender Balance in Research Leadership’ at UiT. Lilli has published several articles on gender balance with specific focus on higher art education.
Matthias Mittner is a professor in cognitive neuroscience at the Institute for Psychology at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and at the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt, Germany in 2011. Besides his research interests in neuroscience, Matthias is interested in developing statistical methodology and has published two textbooks on using R for statistical computing.
Where does the shoe pinch? Workshop framework to identify institutional pressure points
If measures to improve gender balance are to succeed, they need to be tailored to the specific institutional culture – when it comes to identifying both where the problem is and what to do about it. But how do you get at where the shoe pinches in YOUR organization? This is a workshop framework that will allow you to harvest bottom-up experiences from different corners of your organization. It can be tailored and facilitated it for your organization.
Presented by: Lynn Nygaard, Special Advisor on Professional Development, Gender and Diversity at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Nygaard holds an EdD from University College London, and has a background form political science (University of Oslo) and Women’s studies (University of California at Berkeley). She has published several articles on gender equality and academia.
The GENDIM Digital Toolbox for gender balance among faculty
This toolbox offers a way of assessing, learning about and improving gender inclusion measures in higher education institutions. The effect of efforts towards gender inclusion can be evaluated in a number of ways: at the organizational level (e.g. present situation analysis), on the individual level (e.g. individual career advancement), and the process level (e.g. quality of actions implemented).It is designed to be used predominantly on a departmental level and also on faculty level.
Presented by: Vivian Anette Lagesen, professor in science and technology studies (STS) at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. Lagesen holds a PhD is in interdisciplinary studies of culture and a Master in sociology. She has published widely on gender, science and technology and particularly on inclusion of women to STEM disciplines and lately on gender balance in academia.
