Slow growth in the number of women scientists
© Murielle Gerber / 2021 EPFL
In Switzerland and Europe, women's place in universities is growing, but parity is still far off. According to figures from swissuniversities, the proportion of women in new faculty hires was 34% between 2017 and 2019 at EPFL. But the rate of female professors was still only 17% in the same period.
Each year, swissuniversities publishes data on the gender distribution of faculty hires at universities, as well as on the total proportion of female professors at these institutions. These figures are used as a basis for strategic discussions by the Chamber of Universities.
According to the latest figures published in September 2021 drawn from Swiss Statistics, the share of women hired at EPFL between 2017 and 2019 was slightly higher than the average for Swiss universities (34% versus 32%). On the other hand, the total share of female professors at EPFL was still much lower than at other Swiss academic institutions (17% vs. 24%).
In Europe, the recent She Figures 2021 report of the European Commission shows that "gender gap at education level is shrinking, but women are still under-represented in research and innovation".
"At the highest level of academia, women remain under-represented, holding about one-quarter of full professorship positions (26%). Women are also less likely to be employed as scientists and engineers (41%) and are under-represented among self-employed professionals in science and engineering and ICT occupations (25%)."