Gender Balance
Teagasc is committed to a policy of equality of opportunity in its employment practices, policies and procedures. It will ensure that no applicant or staff member receives less favourable treatment on the grounds of:
- Gender
- Marital Status
- Family Status
- Disability
- Age
- Religion
- Sexual Orientation
- Race
- Colour
- Nationality or ethnic or national origins
- Membership of the traveling community
We are conscious of the current “leaky pipeline” whereby the ratio between men and women is reasonably balanced at doctoral level but the number of women in academic and research positions decreases as the seniority of the positions increases, e.g., just 19% of professors in Ireland are female. Therefore, specific measures will be taken at all stages of the programme to ensure equal opportunity for applicants of both genders.
- An International Expert Advisory Board (IEAB) will review the call documents and procedures before final launch of the call to prevent any unintentional bias or discouragement of female applicants being incorporated into the programme.
- Applicants who have taken a career break will not be disadvantaged. The length of time spent on a career break will be taken into account in evaluating the applicant’s achievements to date.
- The pool of reviewers and the review panel will be gender balanced, i.e., neither gender will account for less than 40% of members.
- All successful applicants (fellows) will have a career mentor, independent of their scientific supervisor. Fellows will be encouraged to express preferences that they might have, including a preference to have a mentor of the same gender or race. Studies have shown that career mentoring can be very beneficial for female scientists.
- New mothers are entitled to 26 weeks maternity leave, with full pay (this also applies if a staff member has a still birth or miscarriage after the 24th week of pregnancy). Adoptive leave of 24 weeks is available for female staff. In this case, we will extend the duration of the fellowship by the duration of the maternity or adoptive leave taken. At the end of maternity/adoptive leave the staff member is entitled to take additional unpaid maternity leave for up to 16 weeks. Pregnant/adoptive staff members are entitled to paid time off as is necessary for attendance to ante-natal/pre-adoption and post-natal clinics.