Number of women in senior academic roles still lags at third level

Only marginal improvements are being made by third-level colleges in the number of women in top academic roles, latest Higher Education Authority (HEA) data show.

Number of women in senior academic roles still lags at third level

By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent

Only marginal improvements are being made by third-level colleges in the number of women in top academic roles, latest Higher Education Authority (HEA) data show.

Men still hold three-quarters of university professorships and two-thirds of posts as associate professor, despite 45% of all academic staff being women.

The country has yet to see its first female university president, but two of the 14 institutes of technology (IoTs) are now led by women.

Despite women holding more than two-thirds of lecturer grade posts at three colleges of education, nearly half of senior lecturer posts (47%) are held by male academics. Pay grades also reflect the promotions imbalance, with just 30% of those paid over €106,000 in universities being women, and only 17% of those at IoTs.

The HEA said there has only been a 1% to 2% rise in the year to the end of 2017 in senior academic positions held by women.

The Irish Examiner’s comparison of figures from 2013 to the end of 2017 shows that the proportion of university professors who are women rose from 19% to 24%. Females now account for 34% of associate professors, up from 26%, and senior lecturer posts held by women are up from 35% to 41%.

The HEA pointed to a very slow rate of change internationally in addressing gender imbalance in higher education, particularly at professor level. But an action plan from a gender taskforce set up by Higher Education Minister of State, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, is expected to take significant steps to accelerate improvements here. She said the steps so far are still very small, and third-level presidents need to show strong commitment and leadership if real progress is to be made.

All seven universities have now achieved the minimum standard in an international award scheme that recognises efforts to address third-level gender imbalance. Trinity College Dublin and University of Limerick were given bronze Athena Swan awards in 2015, and the most recent recipients were NUI Galway and Maynooth University last November.

All third-level colleges must hold this bronze award by the end of 2019 or they will no longer be eligible for funding from the country’s main research agencies.

They will need a silver award, showing meaningful progress on gender initiatives, to qualify for research funding from 2023.

HEA chief executive, Graham Love, said systematic barriers in higher education institutions’organisation and culture mean that talent alone is not always enough to guarantee success.

The universities’ data mask wide variations between colleges — with 31% of UL’s professors being women, it retains its leading position for professorial appointments.

But while most universities show an increase in the proportion of female professors since the first data from the HEA in 2013, the situation has not improved at NUI Galway.

Just 12% of its professors were female at the end of 2017, a fall from the 14% reported by the HEA for the end of 2013. The 17% of associate professors who are women is also significantly lower than at the other six universities.

NUI Galway recently promoted four female academics to senior lecturer in its settlement of a long-running dispute over a promotion round in 2008 and 2009, which saw another matter resolved last year in the Workplace Relations Commission and a ruling against it in a 2014 equality case by botanist Micheline Sheehy Skeffington. At 43%, the proportion of NUI Galway senior lecturer posts held by women was second only to the figure at UL.

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