Nordic Life Science 1
out of the first Nordic-Baltic meeting for Young
Academies held in Stockholm last year, with the purpose to identify initiatives and strategies that may improve gender equality. This is aimed at universities, research councils and decision-makers in the Nordic and Baltic countries. “We had long been worried about the fact that although women have constituted more than half of the PhD candidates in the Nordic countries in the last decade, it is well documented that there is a loss of women across the academic career pipeline. This means that academia loses too much talent. In our view, academia cannot afford such a loss. If we want to achieve gender equality within a reasonable period of time, targeted initiatives, such as those suggested in the statement, are required,” Guro Busterud and Ingrid Lossius Falkum, Board members of the Young Academy of Norway, jointly described to Nordic Life Science. In their statement they propose a number of measures for all areas of academia, including recruitment, promotion, research funding, work environment, mobility, scientific meetings and the peerreview process. 74 NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG