TU/e recruits first 35 top female scientists with Irène Curie Fellows program
New hiring policy has more than doubled the increase in female scientists at TU/e
Eindhoven University of Technology has recruited 35 female scientists since it started its new hiring policy last July to address the gender balance in its scientific staff. The policy, which stipulates that faculty positions are only open to women in the first half year of recruitment, has more than doubled the yearly increase of women in these positions at TU/e. The university board finds these first results encouraging.
The lowest percentage
EU-wide the Netherlands has one of the lowest percentages of female professors, and within the Netherlands TU/e has long been the university with the lowest percentage in this respect. The university feels this imbalance is not only unfair to women, but it also hurts science: mixed workforces have proven to come to better results.
Only open to top female scientists
The university has implemented several, cumulative measures over the last ten years to improve its gender balance. With limited results: at the achieved pace of increase of faculty (assistant, associate and full professors) it was expected to take another ten to twenty years to reach a good balance. Therefore the university decided last year to use another approach, via its Irène Curie Fellowship program, which is only open to top female scientists and runs for five years.
35 Irène Curie Fellows
The first results show this program is successful. Since last July up to 1 April this year TU/e recruited 35 Irène Curie Fellows: 29 assistant professors, 2 associate professors and 4 full professors. Thanks to the program the percentage of female faculty has gone up to 25 percent.
A boost to science and education
“It is great to see that the Irène Curie Fellowship program is delivering, with the recruitment of 35 top female scientists”, says Robert-Jan Smits, President of TU/e. “And although these figures are encouraging, we are not there yet. We want to reach a percentage of about 30 percent women in the tenured academic staff within five years. Because at that percentage a minority stops being a minority and has the position and influence it deserves.”
TU/e rector Frank Baaijens thinks the results could not have been achieved without the Irène Curie program. “We see the program is helping us attract talents from all over the world, which is going to boost science and education at our university. And it helps us greatly in creating a more balanced academic workforce, which we feel is a bare necessity for universities in the 21st century.”
More information about the program and the fellows can be found on this page: https://www.tue.nl/en/working-at-tue/scientific-staff/irene-curie-fellowship/