Through concrete changes of the academic culture, system and procedures together with strategic recruitments, we aim towards equal gender balance within the faculty. We invest SEK 300 million over ten years on gender equality work to make Chalmers more successful.
The initiative is funded by the Chalmers University of Technology Foundation, was launched on 1 January 2019 and run through 2028. As far as Chalmers knows, this is by far the largest individual investment in gender equality made by any university.
Background and motive of Genie
Like other technical universities, Chalmers has a very low proportion of women in its faculty. However, research shows that a more even gender balance leads to greater scientific success and a better working environment, for both men and women. As a strategy to become more excellent, Chalmers aims to increase the proportion of women among its faculty.
Overall goals
The overall goals of the project:
- Increase the proportion of female faculty.
- Remove the structural and cultural obstacles that hamper women’s careers.
- Create a working environment that is diverse and inclusive and supportive of excellence in research and teaching.
Content
Genie mainly consists of two parts: concrete and tailored action plans, to achieve long-term cultural and structural change in the departments, and direct support to increase the fraction of females in the faculty.
Genie events and related activities
November 23 15:00-16:00: Zoom-seminar with Genie - "A conscious focus on unconscious bias"
Genie invites to a seminar on "unconscious bias" with Annette Bak, Head of Advanced Drug Delivery at AstraZeneca, and Katarina Matson, Head of Culture & Diversity at Volvo Cars. Sign up to the seminar using the Choodle link below - we will send you the Zoom link to the seminar the day before the seminar.
Want to know more about the Genie Open Call projects?
New article: "Female Faculty: Why So Few and Why Care?
In a recently published article in Chemistry - A European Journal, Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede and Lynn Kamerlin (professor at Uppsala university) write about the slow ongoing progress in increasing the representation of women in academia at senior levels, in particular in the natural sciences and engineering. 
Read the full article Gender-divided data and employee survey analysis published
Genie has now published gender-divided data for 2019, for Chalmers as a whole, departments and for divisions. Please, take a look and see how your environment stands. The data includes gender-division for various positions (all types of research-related positions), and for sick-leave and salaries. We also provide an analysis comparing 2018 data to 2019 data in terms of fraction females in various positions. Even if both 2018 and 2019 can be considered base-line data, several departments have changed the numbers in a positive way but, clearly, the sick leave data is worrisome.
We have also analyzed the questions Genie added to the employee survey last year. We have now published a summary of the 2019 results where we analyze the answers based on gender for different types of research-related positions as well as per department.
Genie supports the WiSE-WWACQT mentorship program
The WiSE-WWACQT Mentorship Program is an initiative that aims at providing support for female PhD students and post-docs either at the E2 Department or WWACQT, through mentorship. The idea is to provide a one-to-one connection between junior and senior scientists working at different departments at Chalmers.
Year one with Genie: "Many people at Chalmers want to engage in gender equality"
After a year of running Chalmers’ gender equality initiative Genie, the leader Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede looks back on a time that has focused on setting up a foundation, gathering knowledge and, most importantly, building trust among Chalmers employees.
She anticipates a bright future.
"There are many people at Chalmers who want to engage in gender equality and there are lots of good ideas," she says. 
Read the full article Genie starts visiting faculty programme
Genie Open Call a great success
Just before Christmas, the reviewing for the Genie Open Call was completed and all applicants have been noted of the outcome. There was a great variety of types of proposal, and in total, 73 proposals were received, with a total of 114 authors. 48 of the main applicants were female, and 25 were male. Read more about the open call at Chalmers intranet (requires a CID login)
Management group and contact
Mary Sheeran, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, vice-leader of Genie