Equality work gains stronger cross-organisational anchoring

Work on equality must help SDU attract, develop and retain talent and create strong frameworks for research, education and working communities. The task connects closely with a range of cross-organisational HR processes, including recruitment, career and competence development, working environment and leadership support. Anchoring it in SDU HR will strengthen coherence across these areas and make it easier to support equality across the university.

An important task for the whole of SDU

Over a number of years, SDU has built up experience in turning ambitions for equality into concrete initiatives. Experience from SDU’s Gender Equality Plan (GEP) shows that a systematic and persistent effort can create results. At the same time, the equality task cuts across faculties, departments and administrative areas. The Executive Board therefore assesses that the task is best supported close to the functions and processes that matter across SDU.

The new anchoring must also support stronger coherence between the national and international frameworks within which SDU operates. This includes the Gender Equality Plan (GEP), HR Excellence in Research and CoARA. In different ways, these frameworks set requirements and expectations for areas including recruitment, talent and career development, research quality and the working environment. A joined-up approach will make it easier to turn them into a meaningful and coordinated effort at SDU.

The effort will continue

The organisational change does not reduce the equality effort. The tasks will continue, and the staff and resources currently linked to GET will transfer to SDU HR. This preserves professional knowledge and experience while giving the effort a closer link to SDU’s cross-organisational HR tasks.

The future direction must be qualified

The organisational anchoring has been decided, but the future development and prioritisation of equality work have not yet been determined. As the next step, SDU HR will prepare an analytical and decision-making basis to qualify the dialogue on how the effort can best create value for SDU and support the university’s strategic goals and core tasks.

The analysis will, among other things, examine:

• SDU's national and international obligations in this area
• expectations from, among others, the EU and research-funding foundations
• developments across the university sector in general
• how work on equality can in future support SDU's strategic goals and core tasks.

The continued work will take place in dialogue with relevant leadership forums and committees at SDU.