Contributing to Gender Equality in Higher Education
The EQUAL4EUROPE project, led by ESADE from 2020 to 2023, aimed to develop gender equality standards in higher education. It focused on addressing the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon in Arts, Humanities, Medicine, Social Sciences, Business, and Law disciplines. The project identified barriers affecting women in academia, including work-life balance challenges, unconscious gender bias, and sexual harassment. Key recommendations include removing barriers to recruitment and career progression, promoting women in decision-making roles, integrating gender perspectives in research and teaching, and mainstreaming gender equality. The study also highlighted the importance of incorporating gender equality criteria in accreditation schemes as a driver for institutional change.
The EQUAL4EUROPE project, funded from 2020 to 2023 by the European Commission in the Horizon 2020 programme, was aimed at developing gender equality standards in higher education. The project, led by Esade, included the participation of six research institutions (Esade, ESMT, IEDC, INSEAD, RSM and Comenius University), one accreditation organisation (EFMD) and one independent monitoring organisation (Nehem).
The project focused on promoting gender equality in higher education and, specifically, at identifying measures to address the leaky pipeline in Arts, Humanities, Medicine, Social Sciences, Business and Law (AHMSSBL) research institutions.
The leaky pipeline phenomenon, present in many sectors and activities, refers to the declining presence of women in academia. According to She Figures, although women represent approximately half of PhD graduates, there are approximately only 30% women researchers, 20% with full professorships, and there are only 20% of European research organisations led by women. This phenomenon has been widely studied in STEM disciplines, where one important cause is the lower presence of women in undergraduate courses. Nevertheless, there was less understanding of the causes that explained the leaky pipeline phenomenon in AHMSSBL disciplines, where the presence of women in undergraduate courses has been high for many years now – in some cases, even higher than that of men.
The results of the project show that there are barriers in academia that especially affect women, hence limiting their opportunity and possibility of succeeding in an academic career. In this sense, in a world of uneven distribution of caring responsibilities between women and men, the challenges derived from balancing family responsibilities with the stringent requirements of an academic career (including travel, international mobility and long-hours) act as barriers for women in pursuing a career in academia. Unconscious or implicit gender bias also influences the recruitment, retention and career progression of female researchers, with significant differences between women and men regarding access to mentoring and formal or informal networks. Furthermore, there is evidence that suggests that sexual harassment – more present in male-dominated fields and organisations with a hierarchical power structure such as the academic career – acts as an important barrier for women to access or pursue a career in academia.
In this context, the aim of the EQUAL4EUROPE project was to identify measures to promote gender equality in higher education and, specifically, to adopt measures to (i) remove barriers to the recruitment, retention, and career progression of female researchers, (ii) promote the presence of women in decision-making bodies and processes, and (iii) integrate the gender perspective in research and teaching and (iv) to mainstream gender equality.
Although higher education institutions have certainly made efforts in recent years to promote gender equality, it is important for institutions to continue to adopt institutional systematised measures to promote gender equality and, rather than easy fixes, focus on the structural issues and systemic biases that impact women in academia.
In this context, the EQUAL4EUROPE consortium published, among other documents, guides, practical tools, and the Position paper and recommendations for accreditation agencies to incorporate gender equality as part of the ‘ethics and societal contribution’ of the business schools. The study reveals that gender equality is already partially integrated into the most important and world-leading excellence accreditations, including EQUIS of EFMD. Gender equality is most addressed in accreditation schemes in the context of teaching, including criteria to ensure students a gender-sensitive learning environment and to share gender equality values, and workforce management. Strengthening the gender equality dimension in accreditation schemes, including, for example, areas less addressed, such as research, governance and community engagement, could further promote gender equality in higher education.
The inclusion of the gender equality dimension in current accreditation schemes is identified as an important driver for higher education institutions to continue pursuing gender equality. External requirements, such as accreditations or, for example, the Horizon Europe eligibility criteria to access funding, raise gender awareness and can act as accelerating agents of change.
