Abstract:

Gender equality is one of UN’s defined goals for a sustainable world. As of today, only 33 percent of the world’s researchers are women, even though they represent 44 per cent of PhD candidates. Women are awarded fewer research grants than their male counterparts, and female scientists tend to have shorter, less well-paid careers. Norway is considered one of the world’s most gender equal countries, and as such it is crucial that academia in Norway works continuously and systematically for equality, both within its own organisations as well as in relation to society at large.

The aim of this paper is to explore ways of working systematically towards gender equality within an academic institution, including networks and mentoring schemes for women researchers. The paper is based on a larger qualitative study evaluating a network for women researchers and a mentoring scheme organized by the same network.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with administrative managers, mentors and mentees. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using a thematic analysis approach.

Three themes were identified:
(1) “Individual and organizational benefits of the network and mentoring scheme for women researchers”,
(2) “Non-systematic utilization of the network and mentoring scheme”,
(3) “Support for the network and the mentoring scheme as an organizational intervention”.

(1) The managers who took part suggested that the network was beneficial, primarily at an individual level, but also for the organization. As such, the managers shared a perception of the mentoring scheme as positive with regards to women’s professional development. Nevertheless, there was also skepticism related to the effect of employee participation among the managers interviewed. For example, some managers were unsure that top researchers having to contribute to enhancing the competence of employees with no or low research competence was the best use of the top researchers’ time.
(2) A low degree of transparency when it came to mentoring scheme participation, and a lack of a clear framework contributed to a feeling of uncertainty among mentors and mentees. None of the managers included the mentoring scheme in their professional development discussions with employees, but some managers had experienced that the employee’s themselves brought it up. There were different perceptions of whether mapping the need for support among employed researchers was the responsibility of the administrative managers, the research management or whether the responsibility lay with the network itself.
(3) The managers who took part in this study supported the existence of the network and its function as an ongoing intervention for gender equality within the organization. However, a greater degree of formalization and mentoring schemes offered to "everyone" was mentioned in all focus groups as prerequisites for managers being able to utilize the mentoring scheme to the benefit of employees. Both mentors and mentees referred to the management’s commitment to utilizing the mentoring scheme as crucial for the scheme to be successful.

In conclusion, it can be argued that to work systematically towards gender equality in academia, the commitment and support of management as well as formalized policies is crucial. There must be a system to map competence needs among employees and a set of tools available to managers in order to meet the research competence needs of women employees.

Keywords:

Gender Equality in Academia, Network Leaders and Faculty Managers, Network for Women Researchers, Mentoring Scheme, Qualitative Methods.