Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede is a Professor in the Department of Life Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden and member of the Royal Swedish Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

 

I thought I would make the world a better place – or at least my university. I failed my mission - even if there were many smaller successes. Here is my story.

In January 2019, full of energy, I took on the challenge to lead a large gender equality initiative at my university. The project was a bottom-up proposal from faculty (including myself). We named it Gender Initiative for Excellence (in short, Genie) and it had the huge budget of SEK 300 million ($32 million USD) over ten years. The idea was to catalyze change, help the departments with concrete actions, finance female hires, support both top-down and bottom-up efforts, and truly get the majority of the faculty onboard. I was very excited. I truly thought we could make a real difference.

When Genie started, I encouraged media to report about it. I thought that if the world knows we are doing this, we have no choice but to succeed. In the first years, we (as in myself, Genie’s vice-leader, and the coordinator) initiated and supported a lot of actions on all levels. We put our hearts, souls and energy into Genie and we got many positive responses. Sure, we faced resistance too. Although Sweden is a country with great social benefits around child/healthcare, parental leave, schools etc., the historical stereotypes around men and women still rule. But Swedes most often think that everything is already fair here and no action is needed.

I am extremely proud of what we accomplished over 4 years. We made a difference for many individuals. But after a few years, it became more and more clear that there were basic flaws in the university system that severely hampered our work. In principle, everything around gender equality became a Genie responsibility.

For example, human resources did not have enough staff to do the legal equality work required by the government, so Genie started to pay for a person. We still do. We also pushed continuously, but fruitlessly, for more communication. We wanted to report good examples, data on the topic, efforts around campus etc. But we were told that Genie should not be reported on until we had a final result. Maybe most importantly, there were many university strategies and visions that Genie (or truly, gender equality) was excluded from. I naively thought I had full commitment by the central leadership for Genie. But it became clear with time that the leadership did not want real change but merely a ‘good-looking’ side project.

When nobody listened, despite numerous efforts to make these problems visible, I decided to step down as leader by the end of 2022. As a last resort to get attention.

Because I recently published an explanatory text in the Swedish Research Council’s web journal - to reach the scientific community in Sweden – several Swedish media interviewed me as follow ups on their initial reports. I think this publicity around Genie pushed the university to finally act. Even though I gave months of notice, there was no new Genie leader recruited until this September, when a temporary leader (working remotely from the UK) was appointed for half a year. This is not a sustainable solution, but a step towards a new beginning.

Also, my university just got a new President, and he has now (as desired by Genie for a long time) opened a search for a Vice-President for equality/diversity. So perhaps Genie can revive, and the original goals will eventually be reached. I hope so. My story with Genie is over, but I continue my efforts on the national level, for example through the Royal Swedish Academies of Sciences and Engineering that could act as role models of organizations making change for equity. A great example is Biophysical Society that is truly pushing this topic and has been a great source of inspiration for me.

We learnt a lot through this journey. The main advice I want to give to others starting similar initiatives are as follows: 1. A senior faculty/professor as leader is necessary to get other faculty onboard. 2. You need to have some close colleagues to confide in – you cannot do this alone. 3. Money is so important. Everything has a cost. 4. Get the top leadership committed from the start and secure links to people with decision-making power. 5. Never give up but if you get stuck, take a new angle. You need to take care of yourself and your own career too.

 

Links

https://www.chalmers.se/genie

Genie’s university website

A large ‘discovery’ experiment: Gender Initiative for Excellence (Genie) at Chalmers University of Technology | QRB Discovery | Cambridge Core

Article in QRB with insights, data and lots of details and facts about Genie efforts during the first 2.5 years.

Genie: a new gender equality initiative in Sweden (biophysics.org)

BPS blog about Genie when it had just started.