About BI

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB)

At BI we promote diversity, and want to create a safe place where employees, students and stakeholders find belonging and growth. BI has set up a task force that works with further development on diversity and equality at BI.

Gender policy for faculty

At BI, we engage with society to co-create an international, digital, and sustainable future. We fulfill our mission by pursuing academic excellence and shaping future careers and businesses, through internationally acclaimed research, high quality education and close interaction with business and society. Therefore, hiring, keeping and facilitating the career development of BI’s faculty is of great importance to be able to maintain and further increase the high academic standard.

Strategic efforts to promote diversity and gender equality and prevent discrimination are important. Gender equality must be an integrated part of BI’s core activities, i.e. research, teaching and dissemination. At BI, we work to achieve gender equality at all levels of the organization. This entails, among other things, having specific measures in place that can contribute to a better gender balance.

The responsibility for ensuring equality and diversity is primarily the responsibility of the top management, but also shared with the Head of Departments in their responsibilities on faculty management. The success to recruitment in line with the gender and diversity policy is monitored and reported on annually. This policy is in line with the UN sustainability goal # 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

At BI, all employees have the same rights, duties and opportunities irrespective of gender, age and national or ethnic background, disability, religion or sexual orientation. BI recognizes all gender identities which may be non-binary, fluid, or agender. This gender policy, however, is the operationalisation of BI’s strategy on diversity and is therefore specifically targeted to remove inequalities between female and male faculty in departments where one gender is underrepresented.

The main objective of BI’s gender policy for faculty is:

To promote an organizational culture that ensures a fair and inclusive working environment for all.
To actively secure equal gender distribution in top positions.
Work to prevent discrimination, both direct and indirect.
Active recruitment for academic positions where gender distribution and imbalance is addressed, especially in areas where one gender is underrepresented.

Measures to achieve diversity and gender equality

Gender equality in academic positions

All genders are important role models in research, teaching and dissemination. This entails:

- that students shall have both female and male lecturers in all programmes and at all levels, including guest lecturers. In this context, the heads of departments have a special responsibility for conscious and open use of lecturers and guest lecturers of both genders in different courses and programmes.

- that experts of both genders shall be used as sources in the media and other dissemination in strategically important areas. The department of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs has special responsibility for ensuring and reporting on this.

- that BI creates awareness of negative attitudes or biases towards females and other gender stereotypes and make sure that these attitudes and biases are not accepted.

- that BI creates awareness of possible indirect discrimination towards women.

Head of Department will discuss tacit areas with their department council, where employees are excluded due to gender, and work to prevent this. This also entails securing a debate climate, which is inclusive, respectful and supportive.
Head of Department should develop mentor tracks for career development and work actively with their faculty to create research plans in pursuit of promotion with particular attention towards female faculty.
Annual report to the board on faculty composition including a discussion of gender balance. Responsibility: Provost for Research and Academic Resources
Annual seminar to highlight the work on gender balance and diversity. Responsibility: HR
Annual funding for measures to increase gender balance and strengthen research opportunities for women. This can be for participating in workshops/conferences, travels, networking groups, media training, career paths and qualification tracks.

Measures for recruitment of woman to academic positions

BIs overall policy is that on average, 40% of all faculty at BI should be women. A critical mass is essential to secure equal opportunities.
In departments/disciplines where females are underrepresented, a 30% rule should be targeted in the recruitment. On average, ‘every third’ candidate hired should be a female.
In departments where females are underrepresented, female candidates should be overrepresented at the interviews and qualifying tenure positions when recruiting into assistant professor positions.
To secure some flexibility in the recruitment, the Provost of Research and Academic resources can allow for extra positions if there are more excellent female candidates than the number of available positions in departments where females are underrepresented.
The recruitment of PhD candidates should also actively work towards gender balance, as we are responsible for educating future academics. The Dean PhD has a special responsibility to monitor this, together with the Head of Departments.
Head of Department should seek to obtain gender balance in the recruitment/interview team as far as possible.
All announcements for academic positions at all levels include information on BI’s policy for gender balance. Where gender distribution is skewed, the underrepresented gender is encouraged to apply. Responsibility: HR.
All job advertisements should include a phrase about how BI aims to prioritize gender equality. Responsibility: HR.
As international recruitment is essential to reach BI’s strategic goals, it’s important to support spouses/partners with careers in Norway and support for families who relocate This entails support and information about job hunting, available schools/kindergarten for children. Introduce a buddy system. Responsibility: HR.