Rector's Committee for Social Responsibility of Science (KomSON), established in November 2019 by the University of Gdańsk Rector - dr. hab. Jerzy Piotr Gwizdała, prof. UG, has published the Report titled ‘Women in science – managing diversity and gender equality within social responsibility of the University of Gdańsk’. Broad spectrum of University of Gdańsk activities in the area of social responsibility contributed to the Report,  in particular the implementation of  EU Horizon 2020 Project „STARBIOS2 Structural Transformation to Attain Responsible BIOSciences” in the years 2016-2020. Prof. dr hab. Krzysztof Bielawski, Vice-Rector for Development and Cooperation with Business and Industry coordinated the Project for the University of Gdańsk.

The ‘Women in science’ Report is the first Polish diagnosis of differences in perception of male and female researchers in Poland in terms of employment. The Report aspires to set a new trend in keeping the talent and science management in Poland under review, paying special attention to the potential of gender, age, nationality and most importantly scientific diversity. Coexistence and cooperation of women and men, female and male representatives of various scientific disciplines, offers great opportunity to Polish science. The summary of university resources in the form of such reports help delivering university development strategies for the coming years.

Below, we present trends regarding the situation of female researchers at the University of Gdańsk, coming out of the ‘Women in science’ Report published by the Rector's Committee for Social Responsibility of Science (KomSON).

• Regarding the positions of assistant professors and instructors – the number of female researchers and male researchers is equal percentagewise.
• For the last 10 years we have observed the positive trend of increasing percentage of females among researchers employed as university professors  - number of females employed at this position increased by 50%. Females constituted 30% and 43% of university professors, in 2008 and 2019 accordingly.
• Women constitute only around 25% of researchers holding the title of ‘profesor’ (full professor) – in this case not much has changed for the last 10 years. 22% and 26% of researchers holding the title of ‘profesor’ were females in 2008 and 2019 respectively.
• The above conclusions concern entire university, faculties and various fields of science alike.
• Female and male researchers produce similar results when applying for funding within international and national research projects, however women are managers in greater number of projects, whereas men manage larger and better financed projects.
• The analysis of salaries of women and men at the University of Gdańsk showed that assistant professors’, instructors’ and university professors’ salaries are at the same level regardless of gender. Some differences might be observed when it comes to female and male full professors – in this case the salaries of female full professors are 7% lower on average.
• It is critical to systematically and transparently monitor and assess the efficiency of implementing legal regulations concerning equal treatment of women and men at all levels of scientific career.

Photo of the Committee meeting after publishing the report

Read the whole report here: