The BALANSE project “IDUN – from PhD to professor” aims at increasing the number of female scientists in top positions at NTNU's Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and has recruited nine female adjunct professors acting as mentors and role models for the researchers at the faculty’s seven departments located in Ålesund, Gjøvik and Trondheim. The female mentors are employed from August 2020 for the duration of two years.

IDUN started on 1st August 2019 with only 13.8 % women among professors at the faculty. It has been named after Idun Reiten, the first female professor at the IE faculty. The main reasons are that too few women are enrolled in the STEM studies at the Master level and that dropout of women increases the further up the career ladder they come. IDUN works on three different issues to improve gender balance: recruiting more women to all levels from Ph.D. to professor, helping to limit dropout of women and increasing the number of female scientists involved in international research projects.

35 researchers at their early career stage have signed up as mentees in the IDUN Scientific Mentoring Program. IDUN Scientific Mentoring Program Seminars have started with its initial seminars 28 August, 3 and 4 September 2020. The mentoring activities focus on group work on a specific research topic, networking, proposal writing and career planning activities.

Learn more about the IDUN project