Draw the Line! Universities as workplaces for male and female researchers in Europe Draw the Line! Universities as workplaces for male and female researchers in Europe Denmark: Cathrine Hasse, Anne Bjerregaard Sinding & Stine Trentemøller (Eds.), University of Aarhus Estonia: Katrin Velbaum, Endla Lõhkivi & Mari-Liis Tina, University of Tartu Finland: Jenny Vainio, University of Helsinki Italy: Anna Maria Ajello, Cristina Belardi & Giulia Calafiore, University La Sapienza ISBN: 978–9949–11–840–3 Copyright: The authors, 2008 Printed in Estonia at Tartu University Press, Tartu www.tyk.ee Coordinator’s foreword In 2004, six partners-to-be in five European countries, Estonia, Italy, Poland, Finland and Denmark, formed a Consortium with the aim of gaining a better understanding of the basic question: why do statistical data show that we find more female physicists in the Southern and Eastern part of Europe compared to the Northern part? On the basis of primarily qualitative data, this question has been dealt with in the UPGEM project. Though our main question is a very specific question, which takes only one academic field (viz. physics) as the object of study, we believe it can open up for many interesting questions relating to wider issues of the relation between gender, science and culture in academic work life. This publication is a collection of four National Reports from Denmark, Estonia, Italy and Finland based on studies of more than 20 physics institutes as workplaces in the involved partner countries (from July 2008, the fifth National Report from Poland can be found at the homepage www.upgem.dk together with the above mentioned reports). Each report can be read in its own right as a deep analysis of a particular workplace culture that makes it more or less difficult or rewarding for women and men to pursue an academic career path. At the end of the project, a cultural analysis that addresses our basic question from a contrastive perspective will be published. Apart from the research assistants, a number of people in each of the partner countries deserve to be thanked, but as Coordinator I would like to thank the UPGEM-partners first. They have followed the project closely and contributed to its success in numerous ways. They have been patient, tolerant and sympathetic to the challenges of coordinating the work of many different people across national cultures to form a coherent analysis: Dr. Endla Lõhkivi, Philosophy of Science, University of Tartu, Estonia; Professor Anna Maria Ajello, Faculty of Psychology 2, University of Sapienza, Italy; Dr. Kristina Rolin, Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, Helsinki School of Economics and Professor Yrjö Engeström as well as Lecturer Merja Helle, Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research, University of Helsinki, Finland (see Appendix A for more information about partner- ships and assistants). I also wish to give a warm thank to all of the assistants, who have worked hard to provide the best possible data and analyses presented in this publication. The assistants behind this publication have demonst- rated great collaborative spirit and engagement in the research work that was a new field and challenge for many of them (in alphabetical order): Christina Belardi, Giulia Calafiore, Lena Dannow, Maja Hojer, Anne B. Sinding, Mari-Liis Tina, Stine Trentemøller, Jenny Vaino and Katrin Velbaum. I would also like to thank the many people ‘behind the scene’ not least the two administrative coordinators in Denmark; Annette Hjort Knudsen, who was succeeded by Niels Henrik Meedom in 2007. From the European Commission, I would like to thank the two research programme officers from the Unit “Scientific Culture and Gender” that is part of the Research Directorate General of the European Commission (before October 2006 called the “Women and Science” Unit); Camilla Gidlöf-Regnier who was succeeded by Florence Bouvret in 2007. Also, many thanks to the Commission which have enabled this project as well as the universities which have supported our work. Finally, I wish to thank all the physicists who have participated in this survey. We are very grateful that they have been willing to set aside time for interviews; without their interest in the research, this project would not have been possible. The very close collaboration in this project has been challenging and complicated but always inspiring, and any point of discussion has driven the project forward to better research and analysis. Thank you to all who helped in this process. Cathrine Hasse, Coordinator Contents General Introduction ......................................................................... 9 References ................................................................................... 17 The Danish National Report .............................................................. 19 Reference .................................................................................... 130 Appendix ..................................................................................... 135 The Estonian National Report ........................................................... 137 References ................................................................................... 211 The Finnish National Report ............................................................. 213 References ................................................................................... 259 Appendix ..................................................................................... 261 The Italian National Report ............................................................... 263 References ................................................................................... 359 Appendix ..................................................................................... 364 About the Authors ............................................................................. 366 Appendix A: Partnerships and assistants ........................................... 372 Appendix B: UPGEM interview guide ............................................. 375 Appendix C: Interviews and www.upgem.dk ................................... 381 Appendix D: Hypotheses and codes ................................................. 384 General Introduction Are universities workplaces like any other? In 1942, the sociologist Robert Merton formulated a set of ideals for these particular workplaces (see note 5, pages 47 and 48). Scientists explained to Merton that science should be governed by norms which emphasize humility, willingness to share and openness to all scientists, irrespective of gender, skin colour or social status, who will benefit the development of an objective science. Even in Merton’s own writings these norms were described as ideals (Merton 1942). Many years later, a senior physicist told the anthropologist Sharon Traweek that Merton’s description corresponded to ‘an adolescent fantasy’ (Traweek 1988, 80). Through numerous studies, the field of science and technology studies (STS) has shown that science is formed in the amalgamation of human desires, exclusions and prize fighting, rather than a transparent system that rewards the skilful, competent and masterful with high honours and positions. In the words of Pierre Bourdieu: “The ‘pure’ universe of even the ‘purest’ science is a social field like any other, with its distribution of power and its monopolies, its struggles and strategies, interests and profits, but it is a field in which all these invariants [original italics] take on specific forms” (Bourdieu 1999, 31). The title ‘Draw the Line’ refers to several aspects of the research behind this publication. The first is the very fact that women and men chose to draw the line at the many problematic working conditions in the publicly funded academic organisations and leave their research career. In some cases it seems to be a specific problem for women that they are burdened with the responsibility of drawing the line when male colleagues make a pass at them. Another aspect is the timeline of their career path from childhood till today which the physicists were asked to draw during the interviews. The title itself also refers to the conditions of the study. We as researchers draw analytical lines when we select and analyse the empirical material. In each country, the researchers have drawn their lines for the local analysis, in accordance with our general guidelines. General Introduction Thus the basic question of why we find more women employed as physicists in southern and eastern European countries is not discussed from a comparative perspective in this publication. This will be dealt with in the subsequent publication where new cultural analytical lines will be drawn in the material. This publication is probing deep into the specificities which shape human beings’ professional career paths in the academic world of physics at different universities in four European countries. We are not discussing the quality or validity of the scientific results in physics but the conditions for those who do the work. In the Mertonian ideal, scien- tific communities should not compete but share scientific results. Though this view may be shared by some of the scientists in our study, we generally find that universities are very competitive workplaces. And unlike private enterprises where companies compete against each other to make the best research results, it seems that as universities become more competitive, scientists compete increasingly more against