On the sidelines of the 71st United Nations General Assembly, UN Women unveiled a report by 10 global universities that lays out their concrete commitments and charts their progress towards achieving gender parity.
The first-ever “HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 University Parity Report” highlights three important imbalances that universities can address: the ratio of men to women represented in university faculty and senior administrative positions; the fields of study selected by young women versus young men; and the number of female students at universities compared with their equal access to academic and professional career tracks.
The group of 10 IMPACT universities spans across eight countries on five continents: Georgetown University, United States; Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), France; Nagoya University, Japan; Stony Brook University, United States; University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; the University of Leicester, United Kingdom; University of Oxford, United Kingdom; University of São Paulo, Brazil; University of Waterloo, Canada; and University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Launched in 2015, the HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 initiative convenes 10 heads of state, 10 global chief executive officers and 10 university presidents to fast-track gender equality in boardrooms, classrooms and world capitals.
The release of report marks the completion of the first year in the initiative for participating universities.
In the report, University HeForShe IMPACT Champions present transparent baseline figures on the representation of women across their student and faculty populations against which future progress will be measured and published on an annual basis. This dataset includes women at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as in faculty and senior leadership roles.
In total, the 10 universities have committed to monitoring their progress on 30 commitments. Some 70 per cent of IMPACT Champions have committed to closing the gender gap in administration; 40 per cent have committed to closing the gender gap in academia; 30 per cent have committed to creating centres of excellence in gender equality; and 40 per cent have committed to ending violence on campus.
Created by UN Women, the HeForShe movement for gender equality provides a targeted platform on which men and boys can engage and become change agents towards the achievement of gender equality.