Equal opportunities in recruitment and increased share of female professors
The commitment to equal opportunities and the increase in the number of women amongst hired faculty is part of the quest for excellence pursued by EPFL.
On 4 September 2017, the EPFL Presidency adopted a policy for equal opportunities in faculty recruitment procedures.
The principles put forward include in particular the active solicitation by the recruitment committees of a sufficient number of excellent female and male candidates, taking into account the impact of implicit biases on the evaluation of candidatures, standards to ensure a thorough and fair review of applications and monitoring of results.
To support implementation, seminars will be organized for members of faculty recruitment committees. Initially, these seminars are aimed at people who can chair recruitment committees.
To know more:
- The policy document can be downloaded from the website of the Faculty Affairs (APR).
- Awareness-raising movie (~3 minutes movie realised by Alban Kalulya)
- MOOC videos on Implicit Bias Awareness & Unbiased Recruitment Procedures (presented and commented by Prof. Dr. Marianne Schmid Mast HEC, University of Lausanne)
- For figures on gender balance @ EPFL, visit the Gender Monitoring page.
Tutorials for Change
Virginia Valian explains the persistence of inequalities in academic careers by an accumulation of small disadvantages for women, and an accumulation of small advantages for men. Among the explanations for this situation are the stereotypes or thinking patterns that guide our actions and are misleading, more often to the detriment of women, and to the advantage of men, as shown by the examples in the Tutorials for Change