NWO Institutes included in the Women Professors Monitor for the first time
The Dutch Network of Women Professors (Dutch acronym LNVH) presented its annual Monitor on 9 December. In this publication, the network shares the latest insights about gender equity in Dutch academia, and provides an overview of the representation of women within universities, medical centres and other scientific institutions. This year, the ratio of men to women within NWO Institutes was also investigated for the first time. This revealed a slight improvement compared to previous years, but a lot of progress still needs to be made within NWO-I.
Women professors at NWO Institutes
In the Netherlands, the percentage of women professors working at universities is 28.7 percent. For the NWO Institutes, the percentage of female scientific staff with a salary scale comparable to that of a professor is 25 percent. The percentage can partly be explained by the fact that most NWO Institutes fall under the natural sciences, and generally, more men than women work in this field. NWO-I has made progress compared to previous years, though.
Peter Spijker, head of Strategic Support at NWO-I: "I believe it is important that as NWO-I, we demonstrate what we have achieved when it comes to the proportion of women among the research staff. I am therefore very pleased that the NWO Institutes have been included in this Women Professors Monitor this year. It makes clear that as NWO-I, we realise that much work still needs to be done despite the slight improvement in gender equity in recent years. At NWO-I, we will further focus on closing the gap in the coming years, for example, by devoting even more attention to diverse and inclusive recruitment processes as well as to inclusive leadership".
Insight into male to female ratio
Lidwien Poorthuis, director of LNVH, details the collaboration with NWO-I: "With our Monitor, we strive to obtain a picture that is as extensive and detailed as possible concerning the male-to-female ratio and related themes in the entire sector. We are extremely pleased with the collaboration with NWO-I in this area. This year, with the addition of data about NWO-I (and also the KNAW Academy Institutes), we are able to include yet another previously underreported part of the sector. The Monitor informs people and encourages them to take action. By providing insight into the male-to-female ratio at the institutes, we hope to jointly generate more attention for the ongoing lack of promotion of women to higher academic positions. A lot is already going well, but there is also room for improvement. Showing the figures and eventually explaining the developments helps in this process".
Target figures: 25 percent women professors in 2025
The proportion of women professors rose this year by 1.1 percentpoint to 28.7 percent. So that constitutes a slight increase compared to the previous year when the figure was 27.6%. At the start of 2020, LNVH requested universities to provide target figures for women professors for the period 2020 - 2025. Should these target figures be achieved, then no university will have a percentage of women professors below 25% in 2025. This year, four of the fourteen universities achieved this target. Given the current progress, eight of the universities will not achieve this target in 2025. LNVH therefore calls upon universities to make an extra effort and ensure, with local incentives as well as focused and inclusive appointment and promotion policies, that positive developments can be reported next year.