The Norwegian Government Commission for Higher Education, also known as the Stjernø Commission, submitted its report on 22 January 2008. We were pleased to see that the report contains a chapter on women and gender equality. Chapter 20 presents the challenges in the area of gender equality, and the commission assesses measures aimed at increasing the proportion of women in academia. The report recommends, among other things, that the Government take the initiative to change the current EEA regulations on gender quotas and that a three-year nationwide project be implemented to develop academic leadership from a gender equality perspective. These are excellent ideas, and sorely needed!

As the Stjernø Commission points out, one challenge related to increasing gender equality in academia is that gender equality plans are poorly integrated into the institutional leadership and strategic planning. Traditionally, gender equality has been a “special-interest activity" conducted on the periphery of the institution’s ordinary operations. It is positive that there are enthusiastic individuals who work hard for the cause, but the problem is that long-term, visible results cannot be achieved if gender equality is viewed as a matter separate from the rest of the organisation and its ordinary activities. It seems, however, that the Stjernø committee makes the same mistake that the universities have already made. Although the commission’s report includes a chapter on gender equality, it appears as though a gender perspective is not incorporated into the report as a whole. I did a test and searched on the word “women" in the document. “Women" appears once in the introduction, twice in Chapter 4, once in Chapters 11 and 12, and four times in Chapter 18 prior to the chapter on gender equality (Chapter 20). In comparison, the word “internationalisation" is used 19 times before the chapter on internationalisation (Chapter 17). I also see that the chapter on women comes third to last in the report, and neither the introduction nor the summary gives special attention to women beyond the stipulation in the mandate calling on the commission to assess measures “...that ensure both genders equal opportunities within higher education and research".

In order to achieve gender equality within the sector, I believe that we face one key challenge in the future: We must ensure that gender equality perspectives are integrated naturally into ordinary operations and strategic planning.