SPAIN: Technical university tackles gender imbalance

The Technical University of Catalunya or UPC in north-eastern Spain has special reasons to try to attract more female students and academics. Women make up more than half of students in Spanish higher education but at the UPC, with its focus on applied science and engineering, they account for just 27%.

Only 21% of lecturers are female as opposed to 45-50% at other universities. With professorships, the imbalance is even more striking: just 5% are women compared with an average of 16% across Spanish universities.

"As an institution, we don't want to waste half of the brain power available in this country," says Marisol Marqués, the UPC's vice-rector of institutional relations.

A drive to boost the number of female students was launched in 2001, involving outreach work such as visits to local secondary schools and open days especially for girls. "But you don't tend to see big changes in the short term," says Marqués. "We also believe there are a lot of factors outside our control such as the lack of female role models for engineers, or social and family pressure."

In 2007, the initiative moved up a gear with the unveiling of a general plan for promoting equal opportunities for women throughout the UPC involving 50 specific actions over three years. These range from making working hours more manageable for women with family responsibilities to changing the criteria for internal promotion of academics.

"Similar proportions of men and women do a doctoral thesis but many women of 30-35 disappear for a time," says Marqués. "And getting back into research after having children is very hard."

The UPC's equal opportunities unit is looking at how to base research assessment for promotion on quality rather than the sheer number of articles written so that women who take time out are not penalised.

Marqués believes that changing attitudes is vital to avoid a backlash against such measures and points to the increasing numbers of male employees taking paternity leave as one sign that mindsets are evolving.

rebecca.warden@uw-news.com