September 2025: Lecture and Workshop with Professor Nanna Mik-Meyer on Gender and Career in Academia
During a regular meeting of the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Professor Nanna Mik-Meyer presented a qualitative study on career trajectories, performance metrics, and gender dynamics in academia. The study was conducted in collaboration with Professor Margaretha Järvinen and highlights key factors shaping academic careers. Those include hierarchies between research fields, the distribution of service work, teaching, networking practices, and gaming strategies. The lectyre was followed the next day by the workshop "Negotiating Gender and Career – The Participants’ Own Experiences". Participants discussed four key themes: 1) How academic excellence is defined; 2) The role of networks in creating opportunities; 3) The consequences of gaming strategies; 4) The recognition of service work in decisions about appointments and promotions. Both events where organized by the Centre for Women's and Gender Research (SKK) in collaboration with UiT's Balance Hub.
October 2025: Interview by Kifinfo about research from Arctic Six universities
Boys and HealthSciences at UiT The Arctic University of Norway has been working for nearly three years to encourage more boys to choose health-related education and careers. Since starting up, the project has been active at UiT in Tromsø and NTNU in Ålesund, and was expanded to include Nordland and Finnmark county since the fall of 2024. The project is highlighted in the government's strategy for gender equality, published before Christmas in 2024, which establishes a goal for the project to become national and long-term.Boys and Health Sciences receives funding through the national budget for 2026 to expand the project from Northern Norway to the entire country. Read more: https://uit.no/nyheter/artikkel/kortnytt?p_document_id=912482
October 2025: Kif Committee visits UiT
October the 8th and 9th UiT BalanseHub was represented at the regional meeting organized by the Kif Committee in Tromsø, which brought together leadership from UiT, Nord University, the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, and research institutes such as NINA and Norway to discuss progress with action plans and challenges related to gender equality and diversity work at institutions. Melina Duarte gave a presentation about the SKJØNN project, drawing connections from Prestige and Implicit to SKJØNN and the need to counteract polarization in gender and diversity policies. After the visit, an interview with Julia Orupabo and Melina Duarte about the ideal academic has been published by Kifinfo.
August 2025: Opportunities and Challenges with AI in Artistic Subjects
On Thursday, August 28, 2025, the Committee for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at UMAK invited staff and students to a workshop with Christina Lentz about the opportunities and challenges of AI in artistic subjects. Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT became widely available in November 2022, discussions about the societal implications of artificial intelligence have been significant. Within the artistic field, questions about originality, creativity, and copyright are particularly critical and must be discussed thoroughly in this context. During the workshop, the participants were introduced to how chatbots work and had the opportunity to test the limits of the technology through exercises. A particular focus was placed on which voices are amplified through artificial intelligence, and which are suppressed. (HB)
August 2025: Åse Hiorth Lervik Seminar Series - Gender and Diversity at the future university
On Thursday, August 21, 2025, the Centre for Women's and Gender Research, together with Balansehub, organized the annual Åse Hiorth Lervik Seminar. This year's theme was gender and diversity at the university of the future. What will tomorrow's students and staff focus on regarding the university's gender and diversity policies, the content of studies, and student learning? The Centre for Women's and Gender Research (SKK), in collaboration with Balansehub, hosted the ÅHL seminar. The seminar was opened by the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education (HSL), Anne Britt Flemmen. Following an introduction by academic Ann Therese Lotherington on gender and diversity in the university sector, staff from SKK facilitated a future workshop with participants from several faculties and the student parliament. Based on gender and diversity at today's university, participants collaboratively created three possible future scenarios: dystopia, utopia, or a future that continues along the current trajectory. (LM)August 2025: Two new publications on DEI in Academia
Hub-member Sarah Musubika has published two papers advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in academia. Co-authored with Ann Therese Lotherington, the first appears in Social Inclusion and offers a policy analysis of UiT The Arctic University of Norway’s GEP/DEI plans, applying Carol Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” approach. The second, “Conceptualisations and implications of safety: an exploration of student experiences of DEI in higher learning,” published in Intercultural Education, draws on qualitative research at UiT to illuminate how students understand safety and its consequences for inclusive learning environments. (SM)April 2025: New paper published on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in Academic Practices
Universities are a prominent passage for social transformation, playing a pivotal role in fostering social democracy. Among the key stakeholders in academia, educators hold a unique position in shaping this progress. This paper examines how educators engage with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through their academic practices, highlighting the transformative potential of these efforts. Conducted at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, this empirical research delves into educators’ perceptions of DEI, their awareness of DEI-related academic policies, and the opportunities and challenges available in promoting social equality through teaching. you can read the article here: “What Are the Students Bringing, and What Are They Taking With Them?” Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in Academic Practices - Sarah Musubika, Lilli Mittner, 2025Doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/15413446251335574 (SM)
March 2025: New national network - Solidarity Society
On March 12th, the new national network Solidarity Society was launched in Norway. The network aims to promote better gender balance in Norwegian philosophy and increase research collaboration in feminist philosophy among the philosophy departments in Norway. At the seminar, one of the initiators, Oda Davanger (NTNU), presented the idea behind the network, followed by author Ingeborg Owesen (Research Council of Norway), who gave an inspiring lecture on writing about female philosophers, based on her latest work *12 Female Philosophers: From Antiquity to Today*. The seminar concluded with a lively panel discussion on women's role in philosophy and the importance of a national network. You can read more about the event in the online journal Salongen. (FN)
March 2025: Workshop on "Excellence” in academia and in evaluations
The Centre for Womens- and Gender Research (SKK) organised a workshop on "Excellence” in academia and in evaluations as part of a series of seminars, worskshops, and discussions about jugdements in academia. The Series is funded by the Research project SKJØNN, lead by the Department of Philosphy (IFF). The workshop was led by Prof. Kate Maxwell and discussed why “excellence” as a concept can be harmful in academic contexts, and considered other possible ways of measuring and evaluating research and teaching. Find the full program here. (KM)
February 2025: Online Course - Gender Equality as a Diverse Phenomenon
Gender Equality as a Diverse Phenomenon (5 ECTS) online course with open lectures in Zoom organised by the UActic Thematic Network on Gender in the Arctic Knowledge Production. The focus of this joint course is to explore intersectional gender equality in northern contexts from various perspectives, led by northern researchers from the Arctic universities. The course meetings will be held on Tuesday afternoons from 14:15 to 15:45 in Finland - 13:15 to 14:45 in Sweden/Norway. All interested audience including researchers and students are welcome to join the lecture series via the following Zoom. Please find the full program here. (LM)
October 2024: Gender & AI in education
As AI technologies like ChatGPT become more widespread, they bring profound changes to education, and it's essential for educators to stay ahead of the curve. On the 30th of October 2024, the research group Contemporary Gender Research (ConGender) at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKK) hosted a seminar on the impact of generative AI on education and the skills needed to navigate this new landscape. Christina Lentz and Katrin Losleben explored critical AI literacy and unpacked whether teachers can confidently, thoughtfully, and productively engage with AI technologies in their classrooms while being obliged to ideals of equality, inclusion and environmental sustainability as manifested in the overarching UiT strategy. This was the first in a series funded by the IFF-anchored project SKJØNN: Sunn fornuft og moralske overveielser i akademias inkluderingspraksiser, the Research Council of Norway, project no.: 350275 – Balanse. Read also the opinion piece by Melina Duarte, head of the Department of Philosophy and First Semester Studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.
2023: Concepts for Gender Equality Work and Research
The Prestige project has published a new book in Routledge on The Gender Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Academia: A Conceptual Framework for Sustainable Transformation.The book is open access and crutinises the conceptual framework for diversity, equity, and inclusion actions in academia to facilitate research-based and critically reflected decisions in higher education management. The book contains 24 chapters, each focused on one of 24 fundamental concepts that are essential for identifying, understanding, and implementing organizational changes and counteracting unjustified disadvantages faced by women and members of other gender minorities in academia, preceded by an introductory binding chapter. (MD)
2020: UiT Balancinator web app is born
The Balancinator is a free and open-source software to visualize distribution of men and women within a specific unit. It was originally created in 2020 by Lilli & Matthias Mittner. The Balancinator allows anyone to build generic plots by inserting simple excel sheets instead of writing programming code. The Balancinator allows you to build generic plots that require no coding experiences and to download high quality image files for your report, presentation, poster, role-up etc. You can find and try the app here: https://en.uit.no/resources/balancinator. (LM
Boys and Health Sciences at UiT The Arctic University of Norway has been working for nearly three years to encourage more boys to choose health-related education and careers. Since starting up, the project has been active at UiT in Tromsø and NTNU in Ålesund, and was expanded to include Nordland and Finnmark county since the fall of 2024. The project is highlighted in the government's strategy for gender equality, published before Christmas in 2024, which establishes a goal for the project to become national and long-term. Boys and Health Sciences receives funding through the national budget for 2026 to expand the project from Northern Norway to the entire country. Read more: https://uit.no/nyheter/artikkel/kortnytt?p_document_id=912482
April 2025: New paper published on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion in Academic Practices
