Share of Female Professors Reaches 30%

“Women accounted for 30.3% of the total 739 professorships at the end of 2024 – to date the highest figure in UZH’s history,” says Karin Gilland Lutz, head of UZH’s Office for Equality, Diversity, Inclusion (EDI Office). Assistant professorships made up a significant chunk of this figure, with half of these positions in 2024 held by women – another all-time high. Around half of assistant professors were appointed without tenure track. The other half consisted of tenure-track assistant professors who have a prospect of permanent employment at UZH once their professorship expires. “Tenure-track assistant professorships enable UZH to provide promising early-career researchers from Switzerland and abroad with long-term career prospects,” Gilland Lutz says. “This can positively impact gender equality in multiple ways.” 

One challenge in appointing established female researchers is geographical mobility. By the time they reach this stage in their academic careers, they have often put down professional and personal roots elsewhere. According to Karin Gilland Lutz, this is particularly evident in heterosexual couples – who make up the vast majority – where accompanying partners of female professor are more likely to insist on their own career opportunities than is usually the case when roles are reversed. 

By contrast, women who join UZH as assistant professors often build both their professional networks and their personal lives in and around Zurich during their years in this role. “This hopefully makes it more appealing for them to stay at UZH rather than accept an offer elsewhere,” says Gilland Lutz. “We hope that this lock-in effect, which sometimes works against us when appointing more senior scholars, will work to our advantage in the case of female assistant professors and ultimately help us increase the share of female professors at UZH in the long run.” 

This allows female assistant professors to add their expertise and excellence to the local scientific community over the long term and focus on the questions and research areas they consider most relevant. “We need to ensure that there are enough female professors in research and teaching,” says Gilland Lutz, adding that the same applies to other aspects of diversity: “The professorial staff’s composition is important to develop socially appropriate solutions to the most complex problems of our time.”

While surpassing the 30% mark for female professors represents a clear milestone, UZH’s equality goals still lie ahead. The university aims to achieve a balanced ratio of women and men in leadership positions; in other words, the share of each should lie between 40% and 60%. At the postdoctoral level, this balance has already been achieved, with women accounting for 48% and men for 52% of postdoc positions. 

In the highest-ranking category of professors, however, progress has been modest. The average share of women holding full professorships, which come with the greatest influence, prestige and resources, has only slightly increased over the past decade, reaching nearly 23% by the end of 2024. On the positive side, three female full professors (Gabriele Siegert, Elisabeth Stark, Beatrice Beck Schimmer) are represented on the Executive Board of the University. But the picture is less encouraging when looking at the level of deans, with only one of UZH’s seven faculties currently led by a woman (Katharina Michaelowa, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences).

Based on the data collected in the gender equality monitoring, Karin Gilland Lutz has identified two areas where UZH can take action to further boost the proportion of female professors. 

The first area is at the early stages of the appointment process, where the number and share of competitive applications submitted by women researchers can be increased. “By competitive, we mean that the applicants fully meet the requirements for the professorship in question and thus have a realistic chance of being shortlisted,” says the EDI head.

The second challenge is to ensure that women who top the shortlist for a professorship are also willing to accept an offer from UZH. Gender equality monitoring data reveal that UZH has a higher proportion of women among those ranked first than among those ultimately appointed. “UZH is clearly missing out on potential here. We have to accept that not every appointment will be unanimous, as it is a highly complex and lengthy process. This gender equality monitoring data point will likely continue to demand our attention in the future,” says Gilland Lutz.