Elections to top science bodies test Croatia’s gender equality in research
Source: Science Business
Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.
Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16.
“The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.
Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.
“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote.
Croatia’s track-record on gender equality in science has been both questioned and lauded in recent months, following both bad and good news on the topic. On the one hand, a senior awards committee was announced without a single woman researcher included. On the other, the national science academy welcomed its first cohort of fellows with more women than men.
Members of the committee, which gives national awards recognising scientific achievement, are proposed by the ministry of science and endorsed by the parliament. The current line-up does include a woman, but she is culture minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek rather than a researcher. Even then, she didn’t make it into the photograph released to announce the appointments on April 16.
“The image speaks a thousand words,” says Tanja Rudež, a science journalist for Jutarnji List newspaper. “I am surprised that none of these men, all well-known scientists, saw a problem with the fact that there was not a single successful female scientist on the committee,” she told Science|Business.
Ivan Đikić, a prominent Croatian biochemist based at Goethe University Medical School, commented on LinkedIn that the news illustrated a “sad truth” about the state of science in Croatia.
“It [. . .] reveals a system where women, despite contributing a substantial share of high-quality, internationally competitive science, are systematically excluded from the very processes that determine recognition and influence,” he wrote.