Gender Diversity

March 2023

This program is a follow-up on the report by the departmental Gender Diversity Commission, Gender bias at Department of Political Science: Problem diagnosis and recommendations, and additional initiatives related to recruitment.

The Department of Political Science, Aarhus University is devoted to increasing gender diversity. We have close to a 50/50 distribution of male and female students, so the low share of female researchers suggests that we miss out on talent and ideas. Diversity in staff is crucial for research as well as teaching quality and variety. Over the coming years, the Department will therefore implement a number of different measures. The program will be adjusted as we obtain results, experience, and inspiration based on the first initiatives.

This page describes the goals of the program, the principles for implementing the suggested measures, and the specific measures.

Goals

• The department will pursue an understanding of scientific excellence with emphasis on quality and originality.
• The department aims to increase departmental diversity, particularly in relation to the gender balance.
• The department aims to stop the “leaking pipeline”. This entails maintaining and improving the share of the least represented gender from one level to the next in AU’s recruitment structure.
• The department aims to promote diversity in terms of research questions, approaches, and methods.
• The department aims to promote a sound work-life balance and to be a family-friendly work place in order to attract and maintain a diverse group of employees.

Principles for implementing measures

• Initiatives will be monitored and evaluated on a continuous basis.
• The program will be revised every second year.
• The program respects all regulations on hiring public personnel including the Ministry of Education and Science’s executive order on university personnel (BEK nr 242 af 13/03/2012) and the law on gender equality (LBK nr 1147 af 03/07/2020).

Measures

The suggested measures below align with recommendations of the Gender Diversity Committee report focused on measures for the retention of talented scholars of all genders at the department. These measures relate to transparency, work-life balance, and work culture. Further, the program includes measures regarding recruitment.