Abstract:

Nowadays, the equality between women and men is one of the objectives of the European Union that is integrated into all EU policies. Since 1997 (Amsterdam Treaty) systematic efforts are undertaken towards the promotion of gender equality in academia and research throughout Europe. Accordingly, many higher education institutions and research organisations in EU countries have achieved important developments in this area by introducing gender dimensions into their organizational, educational and research activities, by revising or developing gender-mainstreaming strategies or/and by developing and adopting gender equality plans (GEPs). In the case of Bulgaria, despite the significant progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment, the academia appears to be rather inactive in its efforts to foster corresponding institutional changes. This paper is dedicated to one of the first attempts in Bulgaria for implementing a GEP by the University of Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski” (within the frame of a Horizon2020 project SPEAR). The paper presents the results achieved at the beginning stage of the GEP development aiming to analyse and assess the state-of-play in the institution (according to EIGE GEAR tool). The analysis of the sex-disaggregated data for bachelor, master and PhD students at the University of Plovdiv is presented. It is done on the basis of the collected data for 14378 students. It is intended to seek clarity on issues whether the number of students in all programs is gender-balanced and whether there are study programs in some fields of study which are preferred mainly by women or men. Special attention is paid to the current situation in programs in the field of Computer Science and Technologies, which are typically preferred by men. In order to investigate whether the preferences of university students are in line with trends in other universities, the results obtained are compared with the official data on the number of female and male students at all universities in Bulgaria and the European Union. In the next stage of the study, a survey will be conducted to do a more in-depth analysis of the current situation at the university. This survey will aim to explore the students' opinion on issues related to gender equality in academia and their impressions on whether there are a favourable climate and environment in the university in this respect.

Keywords:

Equality between women and men, research, academia, analysis of sex-disaggregated data.