EWM-NL

Policy recommendations

The Dutch association of female professional mathematicians, EWM The Netherlands, submitted a document to the College van Rectores Magnifici. The document was sent out to the Council of Provosts on 5 July 2018.

 EWM-NL has observed that some best practices among Dutch universities regarding gender diversity are not shared among all universities. A prominent example is the contract duration of tenure-trackers with respect to a pregnancy, where in some universities an extension beyond the 4-year mark is possible in such a case and in others this is considered against the Dutch law.

To compile the document, EWM-NL visited all Dutch universities that have a mathematics department in the 2017 – 2018   academic year and initiated discussions regarding gender diversity with all faculty members. This procedure let to a plethora of statements. We gathered a few of these thoughts / observations in a three-page document, which we hope that will serve as food for thought for the Council of Provosts so as to harmonise to some extent the efforts in increasing diversity in Dutch academia.

EWM-NL secured the endorsement of the document by various relevant organisations, such as the Wiskunderaad, PWN, KWG, LNVH, DEWIS (TUD), FFNT (UT), and WISE (TU/e). We are grateful for the support.