WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN ACADEMIC MANAGEMENT TEAMS: THE CASE OF THE UNIVERSITAT POLITÈCNICA DE VALÈNCIA

Over the years, there has been in Spain a steady increase in enrolment numbers of female students in higher education. But when it comes to employment patterns, literature and statistics confirm that the higher the position of responsibility, the less visible women become, and the lower the position, the more visible they are. Hence, gender disparities still exist, especially regarding participation in top decision-making positions, with women facing systemic barriers to opportunity and advancement and suffering from multi-faceted discrimination. Furthermore, these barriers are particularly strong in science and engineering.

Nowadays, Spanish higher education institutions are being encouraged to exhibit equity and support for female students and staff. But numbers in itself is not the goal. The aim is to provide role models for all that reflect that women do have decision-making capacity and leadership.

National studies have been carried out exploring in depth gender issues in different universities, but the Universitat Politècnica de València has not been the focus of research yet. Only two previous works have been identified: one explored administration and services staff, and the other the school of Architecture and the department of Structures.

In this article the management teams of the different institutions that compose the Universitat Politècnica de València are analysed from a gender perspective. These institutions are nine higher technical schools, two faculties and two higher polytechnic schools. On the one hand it aims to quantify female presence in the governing bodies of these centres. On the other hand it will try to find out whether there is feminization of certain areas (culture, student affairs and campus life, infrastructure, quality and accreditation, economic affairs and planning, research and innovation, academic planning …). This analysis will show the importance of women-held positions in the management of the centres, as opposed to those held by men.

In order to do so, publicly available data from the websites of the centres will be explored, trying to homogenize the designation of the different positions because, according to the current regulation, the decision about the number of deputy directors to be appointed and their area of responsibility in each school or faculty is taken by the school director or the faculty dean respectively.