Gender equality work
Work with gender equality is a strategic matter for the University of Oslo, which has undertaken to ensure that gender equality permeates all its activities. This also applies to faculties, museums and centres.
Gender equality is about democracy and fundamental human rights, but also about the quality of our activities at the University of Oslo and our legitimacy in society as the country’s foremost institution for research, education and dissemination.
UiO's gender equality policy
Gender equality is both an objective and a process that involves:
- the University consciously promoting an organisational culture and a working environment that is inclusive and fair to both sexes;
- education, professional strategy and incentive schemes designed so that they give qualifying candidates and researchers of both sexes equal opportunities to develop their talent;
- an active recruitment policy that evens out unequal gender selection and indirect discrimination;
- that the share of women and men as professors and associate professors and in academic posts reflects the gender distribution in the recruitment base.
The University of Oslo’s gender equality policy is rooted in its Strategic Plan 2010-2020 and is defined in the Gender Equality Action Plan 2018-2020 (pdf) (Norwegian).
Gender equality initiatives in 2018
Gender equality work at UiO has the following focus areas in 2018:
- Increased efforts to prevent harassment
- Seminar on diversity at UiO with the Gender Equality Coordination Group, deans and faculty directors
- Career-promoting measures for female postdocs (mentoring programme) and associate professors (career development initiatives)
- Compilation of information about the applicant base and seminar on study choices (Department of Academic Administration)
- 8th of March event (Norwegian) in cooperation with the Centre for Gender Research
- Participation in Oslo Pride 2018 in cooperation with OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University
How is the gender equality work organised?
- The University of Oslo has a Equality Adviser who works on following-up and developing the University’s gender equality policy. Equality Adviser Hege Elisabeth Løvbak is affiliated with the Department of Personnel Support.
- The University of Oslo has appointed a special Gender Equality Coordination Group (Norwegian) with representatives from the management at the faculties and museums, the gender research environment, the student body and the Department of Research Administration. Rector Svein Stølen leads the group’s work and the Equality Adviser is the secretary. The primary task of the group is to contribute to strategic discussions and set gender equality objectives at the University of Oslo.
