A new report released by the Higher Education Authority reveals that women are underrepresented in senior academic positions in third-level institutions across the country.
This is the first time a report of this kind which highlights the gender gap has been released by the authority.
According to RTE, figures gathered from last year show that just 14%-20% of professorships in Ireland’s top universities are positions held by women.
The worst university to represent women is NUI Galway with 79% of senior posts held by men.
UCC follows with 73% of senior posts held by men, NUI Maynooth at 72%, UCD stands at 71% while 67% are men in Trinity College.
St Patrick’s College defeats this trend with a 50/50 split at its top level. No figures for DCU were included in the report by RTE.
The report also found that few Institutes of Technology have quite a wide gender gap but in only one, the Institute of Art and Design in Dun Laoghaire, do women hold slightly more positions than men.
These figures were requested by RTE following an Equality Tribunal ruling earlier this month. That ruling found that NUI Galway had discriminated against a female academic on grounds of gender when she applied for a senior lectureship post.
The HEA figures show that across the universities, women hold half of all lecturer posts.
At the next level, senior lecturer, their share falls to 35%.
Above that, at associate professor level, the share of females falls to 26% and fewer than one in five women hold the top position of professor (19%).
A similar but slightly better trend is found in the Institutes of Technology but still, at the top senior lecturer level, just one in every four posts is held by women.
Sharron Lynskey
Image Credit: hipomarketingstudents.com
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