Gender Equality Plan

The Work Environment Act aims to ensure that all employees in Sweden have a good work environment in accordance with the act. The goal is to reduce the risks of ill health and accidents in working life and to improve the work environment from a holistic perspective, including the aspect of gender equality.

The Higher Education Act prescribes that in the activities of higher education institutions, equality between women and men must always be attended to and promoted (Chapter 1, Section 5). The Higher Education Ordinance (1993: 100) regulates the procedure for employment and requires that when a group submits proposals for applicants who should be considered for employment as teachers or professors, women and men must be equally represented in the group or among experts unless there are special reasons to the contrary.

The Discrimination Act (2008: 567) contains provisions that higher education institutions, within the framework of their activities, both as employers and education providers, must conduct work to actively promote equal rights and opportunities for all individuals regardless of gender, transgender identity, ethnicity, social, cultural or religious background, sexual orientation or age. The university also conducts a salary review every year. The salary review aims to map and analyse salary differences between women and men in order to detect, remedy, and prevent unreasonable wage differences.

Equality between women and men is a basic norm and a political goal in Sweden. The overarching goal of gender equality policy is for women and men to have the same power to shape society and their own lives. The goals were formally adopted with broad political agreement in 2006.

Sweden's gender equality policy goals mean that there must be an equal distribution of power and influence between women and men, economic equality, equal education, an equal distribution of unpaid home and care work and equal health. A final goal is that men's violence against women must end.

The Swedish government has decided that universities and colleges must work actively with gender mainstreaming to contribute to achieving the national gender equality policy goals. This means that the University of Borås has developed its own Action Plan for Gender Mainstreaming (Reg. no. 231-20) in which two areas are specifically identified: gendered study choices and career paths. The university also works to ensure administrators inquire whether gender equality has been taken into account prior to formal decisions being taken at the Vice-Chancellor's level. The university must also report on how gender equality is taken into account when allocating research funds. Every year, the university makes a report to the government on the plan and other directives. The University of Borås also has a Policy for Equal Opportunities (Reg. no. 479-19) that applies to all university activities and includes employees, students, applicants for educational programmes and positions, as well as participants in contract educations. There must be equality in terms of employees' working conditions, salaries, and career opportunities, and it must be possible to combine a professional career with responsibility for home and family.

The University of Borås is a university with successful educational and research environments that come together under the vision “Together, we take responsibility for the future. Through continually developing distinctive education and research, we make a difference.” Along with our vision statement, we have the following goals: The attractive university and Complete academic environments 2.0. In our goal descriptions, the university states “At an attractive university, different opinions and competencies are respected and there is an ability to have a constructive discussion based on facts. The attractive university takes responsibility for the future and the goals formulated in Agenda 2030. This means that a global perspective and gender mainstreaming are clear aspects of education and research.” Further, the university states that “A complete academic environment is characterised by nationally and internationally recognised environments as well as sustainable development, gender equality, and internationalisation in accordance with Agenda 2030.”

Through selected strategies to achieve our goals, the university works actively to develop "a culture and core values that are based on everyone's equal value as well as trust and respect for each other."

The university has routines for preventing victimisation, sexual harassment, and reprisals that affect both employees and students.

The Research and Education Board and the Board for Artistic Research and Education have a responsibility for the employment and promotion of researchers. The Appointments Procedure at the University of Borås (Reg. no. 761-18) works for an even gender distribution between women and men. That means that active efforts towards gender equality and diversity are part of the university’s recruitment work. One of the long-term goals for equality work at the University of Borås is that all occupational groups should be quantitatively equal, that is, none of the sexes should be represented by less than 40%. The university must therefore increase the proportion of employees of the underrepresented sex in unequal occupational groups. When there is no equal distribution between women and men in a certain type of work or within a certain category of workers, the university must, in the case of new recruits, make special efforts to obtain applicants of the underrepresented sex. Rules for Recruiting and Promoting Teachers (Reg. no. 760-18) supplement the Appointments Procedure.

In the university's Admissions Procedure for Doctoral Education (Reg. no. 633-18), the university must always take diversity and even gender distribution into account when recruiting and selection in accordance with the university’s Policy for Equal Opportunities. In the university's Rules for Doctoral Studentship Employment (Reg. no. 005-16), the university writes that no applicant or admitted doctoral student should be treated differently due to ethnicity, religion or other belief, sexual orientation, functional variation or gender. Finally, the Rules on Study Funding for Doctoral Students (Reg. no. 62-18) aim to ensure that students admitted to doctoral programmes are treated uniformly and correctly.

The University of Borås applied for accession to the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The university has been evaluated and approved based on the charter and code of conduct by the European Commission and has the HR Excellence in Research Award certification. The next phase in the certification process is in progress and means that the activities in the developed action plan must be implemented. In May 2023, the university will report to the European Commission on what activities have been carried out. The general principles and requirements that apply to researchers mention, among other things, non-discrimination and representative gender distribution at all levels, including at the supervision and management level. Based on the Working Conditions clause in the charter, the university is to create conditions that make it possible for both female and male researchers to combine family and work, children, and careers. Particular attention should be paid to flexible working hours, part-time work, remote work, and leaves of absence.

Read more about the university's HRS4R work.

In the university's local programme evaluations for Bachelor's level, Master's level, and doctoral level education, gender equality is emphasised as an aspect and must be included in the evaluation (Reg. no. 762-19). The programme evaluations are carried out during a recurring six-year cycle where the university's various environments and programmes, including freestanding courses, are evaluated. Doctoral education is included in the evaluation within the environments to which they belong (Reg. no. 286-19).

The university's supervisory authority, the Swedish Higher Education Authority, reviews educational programmes at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels in national evaluations. The assessments include gender equality when it comes to design, implementation, and results. The same applies to doctoral education programmes, in which the national review requires gender equality as a quality factor to be addressed.

Within the continuous quality work that takes place in the university's research activities, gender equality is included as a perspective. The university also shows its ambition to create good conditions for research by now being connected to the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers – HRS4R, which naturally includes gender equality and equal opportunities.

The University of Borås places the responsibility for gender equality and mainstreaming on its units; the intention is decentralised leadership. This means that every manager in education, research, and Professional Services is responsible for meeting the requirements set for gender equality, both for employees and students. The work is linked to the systematic work environment initiatives that are based on Sweden's work environment legislation and the work environment initiatives that are conducted both centrally and locally. Human Resources is responsible for supporting managers in handling gender-related issues and offers training for managers and decision-makers. The university's Legal Expert assists the organisation in the form of legal support. Subject knowledge in gender studies can be provided by some employees among the academic staff.

Every year, the University of Borås reports its results in an Annual Report as informed by the Higher Education Act (1992: 1434) and the goals and requirements that the government has stated in regulatory letters or other decisions. The individual-based statistics included in the report must be broken down by gender, unless there are special reasons not to do so. The collected statistics concern both employees and students.

The Student Barometer is carried out annually on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor. It goes out to about 7,000 students with a response rate, for 2020, of about 1,500. The survey covers, among other things, the university's priority areas, including equal opportunities of which gender equality is a part. The purpose of the Student Barometer is to provide the University of Borås with a basis for developing and improving its programmes, courses, and the students' study environment.

The Doctoral Student Barometer is carried out every two years and is part of the ongoing follow-up work done within the framework of the university's quality system for education. Questions include whether doctoral students experience unequal treatment and whether the conditions for women and men are perceived as equal.

The employee survey is conducted every two years and aims to follow up on the university's work environment, partly as an element of systematic work environment efforts, and partly to evaluate university operations and identify development areas for the university as an organisation. Each unit is responsible for drawing up an action plan based on its results. The employee survey includes questions about equal opportunities, which includes gender equality.

The Unit for Pedagogical Research and Development in Higher Education (HUF for its Swedish name, Enheten för högskolepedagogiskt utveckling och forskning) is tasked with conducting higher education pedagogical activities and pedagogical development in collaboration with the Faculties and offers workshops and courses in norm-critical pedagogy for teaching staff.

HUF offers a course in gender mainstreaming in practice with a focus on teaching and students. It is an activity that supports the gendered study choices goals as stated in the Action Plan for Gender Mainstreaming (Reg. no. 231-20).

Within the framework of its management education programme, the Human Resources at the university offers education relating to discrimination legislation and grounds for discrimination. This includes how perceptions of gender can inadvertently influence decision-making.