IV European Women Rectors Conference European Women Rectors

IV. European Women Rectors’ Conference European Women Rectors Across Europe Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Role of Leadership for Structural Changes Gülsün SAĞLAMER Istanbul Technical University 16 May 2014, Istanbul 1

Content • New developments at EU level • “Women Academics Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe” (11 th of November 2008) • “Women Academics Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Women Leadership in Higher Education”(12 -14 th of April 2010) • European Women Rectors Across Europe: Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities (21 -23 May 2012) • European Women Rectors Across Europe: Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Role of Leadership in Structural Changes 15 -17 May 2014 • Some Conclusions • Istanbul Recommendations 2

Supporting EC policy on Gender and Scince 1. Communication on the ERA 2012: o Gender is one of 5 priorities: o “Gender equality and gender mainstreaming in research: Encouraging gender diversity to foster science excellence and relevance”. Member states are invited to: o Create a legal and policy environment and provide incentives. o Engage in partnerships with funding agencies, research organizations and universities to foster cultural and institutional change on gender. o Ensure that at least 40% of the under-represented sex participate in committees involved in recruitment/career progression and in establishing and evaluating research programs. 2. Horizon 2020, Art. 15: o Structural change for ensuring equal opportunities and promoting women’s careers. o Promoting integration of gender dimensions in research and innovation content 3

Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe (11 th of November 2008) First meeting has been organized as pre-conference meeting of the UNICAFE dissemination conference titled “Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Academics in Engineering, Technology and Life Sciences Across Europe” (12 -14 November 2008, ITU, Istanbul ) We invited women rectors and vice rectors of European universities which are already members in EUA has supported us to organize such an event in Istanbul. We invited 43 EUA member universities and received 11 positive replies from 9 countries. We have also extended our invitation to present and former women rectors and vice rectors of Turkish universities and received 10 positive replies. The representative of EC was present in this meeting At the conference, Women Rectors shared experiences with each other and discuss the possibilities of – How to improve the situation of women academics, – How to develop strategies for future-oriented cooperation They focused on new ideas to improve the conditions for women academics to remove the barriers for horizontal and vertical segregation and decided; – To continue the organization of the meetings annually, – To cooperate with the similar networks and organizations in the world. 4

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“Women Academics Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Women Leadership in Higher Education” 12 -14 April 2010, Istanbul “Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Women and Leadership In Higher Education”, which is again hosted by ITU and supported by IAUP (International Association of University Presidents) and EUA (European University Assosication). 8

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Road Map & Recommendations • Formation of a European Women Rectors’ Platform, • Representation in & interaction with “World Women Presidents’ Forum” • Organisation of annual/biannual conferences, • Creating opportunities for collobrative projects, • Participation in the activities of the European & global higher education organisations. – – EUA Annual Conference, October 20 -23 , 2010, Palermo IAUP Triennial Conference, June 17 -20, 2011, New. York SEFI Annual Conference 2011 Lisbon, September 27 -30, 2011 World Women University Presidents Forum 3 -5 November, 2011 The Third European Women Rectors Conference 21 -23 May 2012, ISTANBUL 13

“Women Academics Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Women Leadership in Higher Education” 21 -23 May 2012, Istanbul In the third Conference; 79 participants from 29 countries 60 international and 19 national participant 14

III European Women Rectors Conference 21 -23 May 2012 15

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III. European Women Rectors’ Conference European Women Rectors Across Europe: Beyond the Glass Ceiling Achievements, Challenges and Opportunities In this third meeting we will have 79 participants, with some 60 of these coming from 29 countries in Europe and Asia, and also from Africa This conference was also hosting the sub-conference of the 6 th Conference of WWUPF to be held in China in 2014 Minister of Family and Social Policies and the President of Co. HE supported and honored the conference We had 7 distinguished keynote speakers with 26 excellent presentations. 17

Under the Patronage of UNESCO IV. EWRC is organized under the patronage of UNESCO Prof. Liu Jinan , Prof. Gulsun Saglamer met with The Director General of UNESCO Mrs. Irina Bokova on 9 th April 2014 in Paris and discussed the possibilities of UNESCO support; o Cooperation of WWUPF and EWRP under UNESCO o Developing New Projects by the support of UNESCO o Unesco Patronage for both of the conferences o IV. EWRC, 15 -17 May 2014, Istanbul o VI. WWUPF, 07 -09 September 2014, Beijing 18

UNESCO 9 April 2014, Paris 19

IV. European Women rectors Conference 15 -17 May 2014, Istanbul The theme of the fourth European Women Rectors Conference is the role of leadership in structural changes for achieving gender equality in academia. The aim of the conference is to articulate a set of recommendations for different bodies such as European Commission, nation states and academic leaders /academic institutions. During the plenary sessions invaluable contributions have been made by the keynote speakers and along the parallel sessions distinguished women leaders coming from 30 different countries shared their experiences and discussed the questions of: • What are the structural changes that we need to promote gender equality in higher education and research? • How are we going to initiate these changes? • How are we going to monitor change processes? • How are we going to measure the results and close the loop? We are hoping to articulate recommendations for academic leaders, institutions, nation states and supra national organizations 20

IV. European Women rectors Conference 15 -17 May 2014, Istanbul We have developed a database using o The list of WWUPF o The list of EUA o The list of women academic leaders developed by google search o We have sent 350 invitations o We have over 80 participants from 30 different countries o 60 international o 22 national o We have 7 distinguished keynote speakers o 30 presentations in parallel sessions 21

IV. European Women rectors Conference 15 -17 May 2014, Istanbul In summary: what are the facts? • Gender equality in academia is still an urgent problem • Horizontal and vertical segregation make the academic life difficult for women • The inequality problem is even more drastic at decision making levels • Asymmetric distribution of research funding still persists among female and male researchers • Recruitment and promotion processes are still present specific difficulties for women 22

IV. European Women rectors Conference 15 -17 May 2014, Istanbul Therefore we need; • Substantial structural changes for promoting gender equality in academia • Strong leadership as it plays a crucial role in change processes • Holistic approaches to improve the conditions step by step • Concrete but flexible strategies and road maps as well as close monitoring – evaluation – feedback mechanisms. 23

Collaboration between WWUPF and EWRP • What are the possible areas for collaboration? • Designing an extensive World-wide database for women academics ; – – Active women leaders in academia Former women leaders in academia • Organizing small workshops (annualy min. 2 workshops) to create awareness; – – in different countries in different continents • Organizing conferences in an integrated way such as; – – Organizing biannual conferences and hosting sub-conferances of each other Organizing conferences every four year but every two years we will be meeting in one of these conferences 2014 (EWRC-WWUPF)-2016(WWUPF or EWRC)-2018 (EWRC)-2020(WWUPF) • Designing training leadership courses for young academics • Taking part in other HE and research networks’ conferences for the visibility of the Forum and Platform 24

What we need for effective and efficient collaboartion? • We need you /your committements and contributions • We need sound organizations • We need UNESCO support – Patronage – letter of cooperation – Designing projects together • We need EC support • We need visibility therefore we need – Good PR strategy – Effective and efficient communication tools And…… • We need funding 25

Thank You gsaglamer@gmail. com 26