Projects - Gender balancing
Projects in Gender balance and diversity in higher education
Understanding gender imbalances among university professors: the shaping and reshaping of epistemic living spaces (GENDIM)
Project leader: Vivian Anette Lagesen
GENDIM aims to provide new and valuable insights into the gender dynamics underlying the pervasive gender imbalance among university academics. The projects uses an innovative approach of exploring how epistemic living spaces are gendered and formatted through the mediation of policies, strategies and practices at national, local and individual arenas.
An important point of departure is the considerable diversity with respect to the gender balance between academic positions, not only between faculties but also between departments and research groups. This suggests that gender balance policies and gender dynamics are mediated differently. This raises questions regarding national policies, university strategies, epistemic and organisational cultures, and how university academics navigate their situation. This project will therefore provide new knowledge about the dynamics between these arenas. This also allows new insights into how policies and measures are shaping and being shaped by practices at all arenas. Such knowledge is vital to develop new measures and make gender balance measures more effective. A secondary objective is to contribute to Norwegian and international scholarship on gender balance, gender diversity and gender dynamics within scientific institutions.
Work packages:
WP1: Norwegian policy-making institutions of research and higher education
WP2: University governance
WP3: Departments including disciplines/specialties
WP4: Everyday life of individual scientists/scholars
Learning from gender balance and equality measures
Project leader: Ivana Suboticki
The main goal of the project is to develop a digital tool which can be used to evaluate the gender balance situation and the the effect of gender balance measures at higher education institutions. This tool will be finished in February 2002 and will be made available here (hyperlink).
The background for this project is that most other methodological tools for evaluating gender balance measures are broad-based and complicated to use. This is partly because they use large sets of indicators for which it is difficult to collected suitable data, and they often require advanced quantitative models to calculate effect. Our aim in this project is therefore to develop a digital tool that provides local users opportunities to assess the effect of their own measures and thus stimulate local learning. As such, it has to be user-friendly, it should not be time and resource consuming, and it should provide results that are easy to interpret.
This project will result in a set of quantitative indicators for assessing the effect of individual-oriented measures, and a qualitative method for assessing the processes for implementing gender balance measures and their significance impact on individua women. In addition, the package will include a checklist that can be used to assess the implementation organizational initiatives for gender balance, with emphasis on what measures are taken, the degree of planning, and who is involved. The method package will be tested out at NTNU at two additional universities to assess its appropriateness and the learning potential.
Evaluating the gender balance measures at NTNU
Project leader: Ivana Suboticki
NTNU has implemented a number of measures to improve the gender balance with the aim to create good gender balance practices in the management, recruitment, teaching, and work environment in general. Since 2003, NTNU has also had its own gender equality budget, which allocates financial resources to improve the gender balance. The budget has mainly funded measures targeting women, these include start-up packages, qualification grants and mentoring programs.
This study aims to evaluate the use and effects of the measures implemented thus far. These insights will be used by NTNU's committee for gender equality and diversity to assess the current gender equality schemes, and possible revisions in the development and adoption of a new Action plan for gender balance and diversity in 2021.
The project combines qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. This includes a survey with recipients of the start-up packages and qualification grants, and qualitative interviews with the former as well as those responsible for implementing the measures (department heads, administrators, deans, gender equality advisor). Official NTNU data on the distribution of funds has also been analyzed.
Gender balance from below
Project leader: Vivian A. Lagesen
Gender balance from below is an action-research project with the goal to improve the professional quality, attractiveness and inclusivity in local academic communities. The project has the following subgoals:
- Assess the current gender balance situation in all departments at NTNU.
- Involve a selection of departments in a series of workshops that will process local problem understanding about gender imbalance and develop local initiatives to improve the situation.
- Facilitate the spread of knowledge about the results within NTNU and other academic institutions.
- Clarify the relationship between quality of professional management, the robust, inclusive academic community, professional quality and gender balance.
To reach these goals, the project will be organized in three parts which partially overlap in time.
Part 1 - Mapping the actual situation and problem definitions
Part 2 - A seminar program that combines workshop methodology with the development and implementation of local measures, carried out by the participants.
Part 3 - A follow-up investigation to map and analyze activities and experiences of the workshop participants (from Part 2).
One of the main outcomes of the project is a handbook for how to develop gender balance knowledge and tailor gender balance measures to local needs.