Together, we have the will and the ability – let's all do our share

For researchers, associate senior lecturers and senior lecturers, the situation at the Faculty of Forest Sciences is reasonably good at the moment, with women making up:

• 37% of researchers
• 43% of associate lecturers
• 40% of senior lectures.

For professors, the situation is much worse. In December 2023, 8 out of 46 professors employed at the faculty were women, which corresponds to 17%. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem likely to improve significantly in the near future. Over the past six years (2019–2024), the faculty has had 122 applicants for 14 professorships, of which 29 (24%) were women. Of the 14 professors hired, 4 were women, or 29%.

There are a few reasons why there aren't more women getting professorships. One is that not enough women are applying for the jobs. Women are slightly more likely than men to leave academia earlier in their careers, but this doesn't explain the difference at the professor level. Another reason could be that job ads don't reach potential applicants – both women and men. Another reason is that women who apply are often considered less qualified than male applicants. This might be because they don't have equal opportunities, as they often have to take on more of what's known as 'academic housework'.

When recruiting for a public authority, opportunities to directly influence the number of women hired are limited.

When making appointments to posts, we can only look at objective factors like merit and competence (Instrument of Government, Chapter 12, Section 5). The Academic Appointments Board (LFN) will assess the applicants based on the info we have, like the job ad, documents in the application, expert opinions and interviews with applicants.

Experts often assess many of the female applicants as qualified to work as professors at SLU, but they rarely find them to be the most qualified. LFN is working to spot bias in things like peer reviews and pays attention to applicants who've taken on a lot of responsibility for 'academic housework', been on parental leave or haven’t had the same opportunities for academic success. But there's a limit to what LFN can do as external (often international) experts have a big influence on the final decision. Few applicants for a position would accept not being offered the job if they were ranked highly by the experts.

Nevertheless, there’s hope and there’s an ongoing process of change to which we can all contribute.

Here at SLU, we can do a lot to change the gender imbalance we see today, at least in the longer term. If we work together and we all do something, we can help the faculty achieve the goal of a more equal gender distribution in senior academic positions.

We all need to think about how we act in different situations in our everyday lives. We need to ask ourselves whether we prefer to ask a woman or a man to do a less important job. Who do we invite to work with us and apply for research funding? Who do we offer the chance to co-author a paper? We must ensure that we are sufficiently active in terms of advertising to potential applicants and encouraging women to apply. What are we doing at SLU to improve conditions for the underrepresented gender?

To achieve gender balance, we must adopt a more alert and critical mindset, questioning our own and others' behaviour in various situations. This scientific approach to everyday conduct will help us to identify and address issues, leading to progress towards our goal.

Christer Björkman, chair of the Academic Appointments Board (LFN)