PRIO Gender Equality and Diversity Action Plan 2022–2025

The PRIO Gender Equality and Diversity Action Plan 2022-2025 (GEDAP) was adopted by the PRIO Board 7 April 2022. PRIO values gender balance and diversity among staff. We believe in equal opportunities for all and that a broad representation of perspectives and backgrounds fosters innovation and improves the quality and relevance of our research. It is our strategic vision to be a diverse, inclusive and gender balanced collegium, passionately pursuing knowledge and understanding in the service of peace. The GEDAP 2022-2025 will serve as a key instrument in pursuing this strategic vision.

Introduction

PRIO is an international, independent and inter-disciplinary research institute, with English as its working language. Its mission is to conduct research for a more peaceful world. As a project driven and project funded organization, PRIO's success relies on our staff's creativity and commitment to produce innovative research of high quality and relevance. Such creativity and innovation will not thrive unless we manage to create a safe, inclusive and collegial work environment for all. The PRIO Strategy 2022-2025, adopted by the PRIO Board in September 2021, states that it is our goal that PRIO in 2025 "will be a diverse, inclusive and gender balanced collegium, passionately pursuing knowledge and understanding in the service of peace".

PRIO values gender balance and diversity among its staff. We believe in equal opportunities for all and that a broad representation of perspectives and backgrounds fosters innovation and improves the quality and the relevance of our research.

In recent years a number of initiatives and measures have been introduced to strengthen gender balance and diversity at PRIO. These measures will now be more systematically institutionalized in the organization. In PRIO's new strategy we make a commitment to "renew our attentiveness to issues of diversity, inclusion and equity in the workplace". The adoption and implementation of the PRIO Action Plan on Gender Equality and Diversity 2022-2025 (GEDAP) is a key deliverable on this strategic commitment.

In July 2011, PRIO became the first research institute in Norway to sign the EU Charter and Code where we commit to the recommendations from the European Commission on improving employment and working conditions for researchers (recruitment, working conditions, career planning and mobility). The PRIO GEDAP forms part also of this commitment. Further, PRIO is required by Norwegian law to report annually not only on the status of gender equality and diversity, but also work actively, targeted and systematically with gender equality and diversity measures in the organization. PRIO's new action plan will serve as an important tool to guide us in this work. With the adoption of this action plan PRIO will also meet the research funding eligibility requirements by the Research Council of Norway (RCN) and the European Commission taking effect as of January 2022.

The PRIO GEDAP is a living document which will be reviewed (and revised if necessary) annually, during the four-year plan period. These reviews will be made in connection with the reviews of the PRIO Strategy implementation plan.

Gender Balance and Diversity at PRIO – Status and Gaps

Gender Balance

Our goal at PRIO is to ensure that our staff do not face barriers to their career trajectory and job satisfaction based on their gender, gender identity, or gender expression. We believe that a healthy gender balance at all levels of the organization is crucial for meeting this goal.

Over the last ten years PRIO has made strides in increasing the number of women in academic staff categories such as Senior Researchers and Research Directors (see Table 1). However, we are still a long way from achieving gender balance in the most senior level position, the Research Professor. Further, we also experience a considerable gender gap among junior staff, where women far outnumber men. When it comes to part-time work, women made up 57% of those employed in part-time positions in 2021 (Table 2). The average number of weeks on paid parental leave (for those entitled to it) was 39 for women and 28 for men (Table 3), whereas reported sick-leave was more or less gender balanced (Table 4).

In terms of the PRIO leadership, the PRIO Board is currently gender balanced. However, in the PRIO Leader Team (LT), women outnumber men (7 out of 10), both in research and support positions (Table 5).

Table 1: Gender Balance – Staff Categories

Table 2: Gender balance – Part-time work

Table 3: Gender balance – Parental leave

Table 4: Gender balance – Sick leave

Table 5: Gender balance – PRIO Leader Team and Board

Achieving gender balance in the different staff categories is a leadership responsibility requiring targeted and systematic measures. In 2014, the RCN funded a three-year project called "Positioning Women for Research Professorship: Early Intervention at PRIO" (also known as the POWER project), with the objective of increasing the number of female professors at PRIO. During the project period, the number of female professors more than doubled, and some of the interventions that were initiated or conceptualized during the project period have been further developed and integrated permanently into PRIO's professional development strategy. These include for example professional development brownbags, writing retreats, leadership training, mentor programs and professional development of the PRIO Leader Team. Building on the findings of the POWER project, the output of the BALANSE project 'Saying Yes and No: The Gender Dimensions of Everyday Choices' (2021-2022) will also provide important information for the regular review and implementation of the PRIO GEDAP.

The data we gather and present here is binary in nature, in keeping with the legal gender categories currently recognized in Norway and the demographic data about staff it is permissible in Norwegian legislation to collect. We are nevertheless cognizant that the social reality of gender identity is more complex than this: a growing number of people see gender as a spectrum and some may not identify as either male or female. PRIO respects its employees' privacy where their identities are concerned, and does not require people to systematically answer questions about their identities. Thus, while we believe monitoring gender balance in a binary fashion remains a useful tool for certain purposes, our emphasis for the current period will rather be on creating an inclusive environment where people at PRIO feel valued, recognized, and respected irrespective of their identities.

Diversity

In the public discourse 'diversity' is often understood to encompass categories of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and/or disability. Also, PRIO as an institution is required by the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Act (which entered into force 1 January 2018) to address and report on all of these factors underlying discrimination. The purpose of the Act is to promote equality and prevent discrimination on the basis of gender, pregnancy, leave in connection with childbirth or adoption, care responsibilities, ethnicity, religion, belief, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age or other significant characteristics of a person (www.kifinfo.no). The particular objective of the act is to improve the position of women and minorities.

In recent years, PRIO has focused mainly on gender balance – introducing a number of measures aimed at strengthening gender equality and promoting women's careers in research. While promoting gender balance will continue to be important, our ambition with this GEDAP is to also explore what diversity means to PRIO and to introduce measures aimed at making the PRIO community diverse and inclusive.

One aspect of our work on improving diversity is to focus on inclusivity, and the removal of barriers, not only for those who fall into the categories mentioned above, but also, for example, those who come from more "invisible" categories, such as those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds or those who represent the first person in their families to seek higher education.

In addition to aiming for inclusivity in general, we aim to actively promote two specific dimensions of diversity that we see as essential for the quality of our work as a peace research institute: international background and epistemological diversity. Given that peace and conflict are inherently international topics, it is important that our staff represent different global perspectives and backgrounds. PRIO has more than 100 full-time positions, of which more than 40% of our staff is international and counting more than 25 nationalities. Recruiting and retaining an international staff is crucial in this respect. Likewise, the complexity of peace and conflict as a topic of research requires a variety of different disciplinary, methodological, and thematic perspectives. Both "international" and "interdisciplinary" are included in our mandate, and diversity in these respects is essential for the health of our institute.

Commitments and Activities for the GEDAP Period 2022-2025

PRIO is committed to promoting and mainstreaming gender equality and diversity throughout the organization. Over the years, considerable time and resources have been invested in initiatives and measures to raise awareness and discuss both formal and informal institutional structures and processes that could lead to unequal and discriminatory practices and outcomes at PRIO. With the adoption of the PRIO GEDAP 2022-2025 we take this commitment a step further by institutionalizing and further refining a number of these measures and actions, as well as introducing some new measures.

The overall goal of the PRIO GEDAP 2022-2025 is to make sure that we maintain what has been achieved in terms of gender balance and professional development in recent years, but also that we recognize and pay attention to areas where challenges remain. In the years to come there is a particular need for PRIO to explore issues of diversity that go beyond gender. While we recognize the importance of setting concrete goals, we emphasize that institutional work on gender balance and diversity is, and will always be, a continuous effort. The plan below thus focuses more on regular activities rather than targets to be met.

PRIO Organisation and Leadership

Recruitment and Retainment: Foster a diverse, inclusive and gender balanced collegium

Inclusivity and professional development at PRIO

Gender and Diversity in Research and Communication

Implementation

The commitments and actions outlined in the PRIO GEDAP 2022-2025 will be implemented alongside with the PRIO Strategy 2022-2025. Responsibility for the day-to-day implementation of the plan rests with the Administrative Director and Special Advisor on Professional Development, Gender and Diversity. The overall responsibility for the implementation of the GEDAP lies with the PRIO Director.

Progress with implementation (monitoring of performance)

The PRIO GEDAP 2022-2025 will be a living document, making it possible for the PRIO leadership to adjust and make changes to commitments, actions and timelines along the way. Progress with implementation will be monitored by the Director's Office through quarterly meetings. These meetings will be organized alongside with similar quarterly meetings monitoring overall progress with PRIO's strategy implementation. Progress with implementation of both the PRIO Strategy and the GEDAP will be presented to and discussed by the PRIO Leader Team (LT) once a year.

Evaluation

The PRIO GEDAP 2022-2025 will be evaluated towards the end of the plan period. Findings from this evaluation will be feed into the process of developing a new plan for the following period. The new plan will also be developed and implemented in line with the priorities of the PRIO Strategy. The Director's Office will be responsible for initiating and overseeing the evaluation, which will be conducted by an internal committee comprising of members from across PRIO departments.

PRIO, 29 March 2022

Henrik Urdal (sign.)
Director

Torunn L. Tryggestad (sign.)
Deputy Director

Lene Kristin Borg
Administrative Director