European Universities tackle gender bias with new proposals

In this context, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) has published a advice paper which analyses the main areas and processes in which this gender bias occurs and it provides a set of recommendations to counter it. The report results from the work by the LERU gender thematic group, in which the lecturers Anna Villarroya (Faculty of Library and Information Sciences) and Núria Pumar (Faculty of Law) take part as UB representatives.

The lecturers will present the results of this work to the UB community in the main activity for the International Womenʼs Day at the UB, to be chaired by the rector, Joan Elias, and which will be held on March 5 at the Aula Magna of the Historical Building.

Key recommendations to counter implicit gender bias

The LERU report notes and provides evidence on the fact that gender bias is present in many academic levels. Regarding labour conditions, women have an insufficient representation in higher levels, as well as a lower salary, and have part-time work jobs or precarious contracts. Another aspect is the bias in selection and recognition mechanisms, such as the way job vacancies are announced, the functioning of selection committees and the language in evaluations, which can undergo some bias. This bias is also identified in funding processes for research.

“Meritocracy shouldnʼt follow an androcentric pattern, and we have to change the institutionʼs culture in order to change that”, say the UB researchers. “In some cases, the measures are easy to apply, such as including a report on gender bias when selection committees are given information”, they say.

The LERU recommendations note that:

-    Universities should have a regular monitoring so as to examine whether their organisational structures and processes are susceptible to a potentially biased access to resources and have to have a plan to mitigate any identified bias.

-    Universities should offer training on gender bias in different formats, including the option of anonymous training.

-    Recruitment and/or funding processes should be as open as possible and genuinely merit-based. This includes measures such as briefing selection committees about bias pitfalls, deciding on clear selection criteria at the outset, letting external observers monitor the selection process and involving external evaluators.

-    There should be a close monitoring of potential bias in the language used in the recruitment processes.

-    Universities should analyse and take action to eliminate pay gap and control its progress.

-    Employees should be compensated for parental leave, bias-free, for instance by extending fixed-term positions or calculating the administrative leave as active service.

-    Universities should monitor precarious contracts and part-time positions for any gender-based differences and correct any inequality.

-    Universities should undertake positive actions for a proper representation of women in all leading positions, making sure that leadership and its related processes are free from any prejudice or preference.

What is implicit bias?

Bias is a cognitive process that can be defined as the process of information distortion under the influence of the context and accumulated experience. Generally speaking, it means we act on the basis of internal schemes, which we use for our information processing tasks to be efficient.

However, these small useful cognitive cuts in the process can trick us, since they tend to pay more attention to that information that fills our expectations and less attention to contradictive elements, adding some bias. Bias can be found in many daily situations, and there are many specific problems and situations that are influenced by bias, such as ethnic identity, race, age or gender. In many of these cases, effects on the intersection between them can also occur.

In this report, the term ʻimplicit biasʼ is used to mean human beings are not neutral in their behaviour but they have prejudices and preferences (or aversions) based on experiences, without being aware of it.

The report is led by Jadranka Gvozdanovic, head of the LERU Gender theme group and professor of the Univesity of Heidelberg, and it is aimed at all governing heads of the universities, research funding organizations, leaders, policy-makers and all members of the scientific community and society in general.  

Gender data at the UB

At the University of Barcelona, women account for a 62 % of university bachelor and master degree students, and a 58% for in-training researchers. Distribution in education is not homogeneous, and in particular, the fields of engineering are still the ones with a lower percentage of women.

At the moment, women account for a 62% of bachelor students at the UB and they are majority in 47 out of the 65 bachelor degrees in the UB. In particular, all the bachelor degrees, without counting dual degrees, 38 of these have more than a 62% of women students that make up for a total of 24,000 students. The other 27 have a lower percentage of women regarding the average of the UB (62%). These degrees make up for a total of about 19,000 students.

The bachelorʼs degree with more women -with a 96% of the students- is Teacher of Primary Education. The bachelor degrees of science and health science that have more women are: Nursing (75%), Biomedical Sciences (78%), Psychology (77%), Pharmacy (75%), and Medicine (70%).

Women used to go for the studies in the fields of humanities, health and education, while they showed a smaller interest in degrees which are strictly about technology. And this is the field that shows more differences. In the six engineering degrees of the UB, the percentages oscillate between the 11% of women in Computer Engineering, to a 61% in Biomedical Engineering. The studies with fewer women, apart from engineering degrees, are Geography (26%), Physics (26%), Economics (29%), History (30%) and Mathematics (30%).

However, when the doctoral period starts and they start their research career with the first research grants, these figures can vary up to the 58% regarding the percentage between men and women among researchers in training.

With the doctoral studies, this evolution starts to go the other way round: men are majority in higher categories of the teaching and research staff. However, the amount of women in the teaching and research has increased by 1,6% since 2012 and it reached the 45% of women in 2017.

When analysing the category of professors, the higher degree in an academic career, women represent a 19,6% out of the total of professors in the UB. Comparing these data to the ones from 2012 (when they were a 21,6%), the decline accounts for a -9,3% in women. Women professors went from 128 to 94, although the total of number of professors during this period was also reduced, by 19,2%. However, the situation at the beginning, entering the University, is turned upside down when looking at the end of the academic career.
Working on a new equality plan

On November 30, 2017, the Equality Commission of the University of Barcelona was built. It is now working on the Third equality plan of the UB. Among the main objectives of the Commission of the promotion of the awareness and training of the university community adding the gender perspective in teaching and research, or collaborating with other entities to work on the design of joint projects on equality and non-discrimination, which is another of their targets.

In order to have a good diagnosis, the UB is also collecting data related to the gender of candidates, members of juries and those who are given the teaching positions at the UB, following the recommendations of the report the LERU submitted.