Equal opportunities monitoring

The University of Basel began setting up equal opportunities monitoring in 2006. The strategic position (2022-2030) and the action plan (2022-2025) for Diversity & Inclusion management formulate seven key objectives for the university. Equal opportunities monitoring focuses on the first goal of employing more women.

Report 2024

Dr. Sabine Büchler

Project Leader Diversity & Inclusion

Sabine Büchler University of Basel Diversity & Inclusion Steinengraben 5, Postfach
4001 Basel
Switzerland workTel. +41 61 207 13 79
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The annual gender equality monitoring documents the targeted increase of the proportion of women in professorships. The following charts provide an initial overview of developments up to December 2024. A full report on gender equality monitoring with further evaluations will be available here next fall.

Development of professorships

Professorships

The University of Basel was very successful in appointing more women last year. By the end of 2024, the proportion of female professors was just under 32%, three percentage points higher than at the end of 2023. Noteworthy here is the fact that there is an increase at all "structural" professorship levels. This further confirms the sustainability of the appointment and promotion processes.

Professorship categories

The proportion of women in assistant professorships with and without tenure track is 56%, with 16 female assistant professors with tenure track, which corresponds to 53% of women at this level. A high proportion of women among assistant professors with tenure track is a prerequisite for achieving changes in favor of gender equality at the higher career levels, which are usually achieved through promotions. The proportion of female professors at associate professor level has also increased from 37% to 40%. The proportion of women in full/clinical professorships has risen by one percentage point and stands at 24% at the end of 2024.

Faculties

In almost all faculties, the gender ratios at all professorial levels have equalized in 2024, although significant fluctuations are to be expected in the smaller faculties due to the low number of professorships over the years. Among the large faculties, the Faculty of Science has made great progress with an increase of four percentage points to 25% female professors in 2024. The proportion of female professors at the Faculty of Medicine also rose by around four percentage points last year to just under 28%. The proportion of female professors at the Faculty of Humanities remained at a high level of 48%. At the Faculty of Theology, the proportion of female professors rose to 44% and at the Faculty of Psychology from 22% to 40%. At the Faculty of Law, the proportion of female professors fell from 39% to 35% and at the Faculty of Economics from 23% to 21%.

Committees and Commissions

The proportion of women on the Senate in fall 2024 is 42%. In the university committees as a whole, the proportion of women has risen from 30% to 33%. With 17 women and 39 men, the proportion of women on the governing bodies (Rectorate, University Council, Rector's Conference and faculty boards) is 30%, with the faculty boards comprising five female deans and 18 male deans (deans, deans of studies, deans of research). At the level of department and institute heads, the proportion of women is 36% and has therefore fallen by 8 percentage points compared to the previous year.

Leaky Pipeline

The leaky pipeline shows the gender ratio across career stages. While women are in the majority at degree level, the ratio is reversed at the two higher professorship levels. For the first time, however, women are also in the majority at assistant professorships with tenure track at 53%. This is a very important step, as these women are on track to reach the higher professorship levels, where female professors are still strongly underrepresented, in the next few years via the regulated promotion processes. The University of Basel is continuing to take measures to keep female academics on this track and thus increase the proportion of women at all academic levels, particularly at the higher professorial levels.