Survey of the University Career of Female Scientists at Life Sciences versus Technical Universities
UNICAFE is supported by funding under the Sixth Research Framework Programme of the
European Union SAS6-CT-2006-036695
Report of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Report produced by:
Budapest University of Technology and Economics (WiTEC Hungary)
October 2007
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
1
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the following persons for their help:
László Dvorszki Director of Department of Scientific Affairs, BME
Adrien Füzesi Head of R&T Office, BME
Éva Hága Vice Director of Economic and Technical Directorate, BME
András Mlecsenkov Advisor of Department of Strategic Affairs, BME
Ibolya Rácz Expert, R&T Office, BME
Miklós Zrinyi Vice-Rector of BME
And the academic staff of BME
The following persons took active part in gathering statistical data, doing interviews and designing
questionnaires:
Krisztina Batalka, Léna Földes, Márta Mocsai, Eszter Papp,
Márton Pászti, Soma Rédey, Mónika Rudo
Edited by Mária Palasik
Budapest, 2007
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
2
Contents
1.
Introduction to the university .................................................................................................... 4
2.
Situation of women in sciences in the country ......................................................................... 5
3.
Statistical background at the university.................................................................................. 16
3.1.
Tables of data of faculties ................................................................................................. 16
3.2.
Short summary of the statistical data ................................................................................ 26
4.
Gender policy at the university............................................................................................... 29
4.1.
The state of the arts........................................................................................................... 29
4.2. Promotion in science and at university .............................................................................. 30
4.3. Bodies and committees – women in decision-making positions........................................ 30
4.4. Pay gap ............................................................................................................................. 31
4.5. Work-life balance and family friendly working place.......................................................... 31
4.6. Best practices – bad practices........................................................................................... 32
5.
Results of the questionnaires................................................................................................. 34
6.
Conclusions of the interviews................................................................................................. 47
6.1. Career path ....................................................................................................................... 50
6.2. Present Position ................................................................................................................ 50
6.3. Access to sources ............................................................................................................. 51
6.4. Publications ....................................................................................................................... 52
6.5. Life work balance............................................................................................................... 53
6.6. Critical areas ..................................................................................................................... 54
6.7. Career path ....................................................................................................................... 57
6.8. Criteria and excellence ...................................................................................................... 61
7.
Case studies .......................................................................................................................... 64
8.
Suggestions for policies at the university ............................................................................... 69
9.
References............................................................................................................................. 73
10. Annex: Short summaries of interviews................................................................................... 76
3
1. Introduction to the university
Institutum Geometrico-Hydrotechnicum, the legal predecessor of Budapest University of
Technology and Economics (BME) was founded in 1782, and it was the first institute in Europe to
train engineers at university level. BME, as a prestigious Hungarian higher education institute is
committed to differentiated, multilevel, high-standard education, founded on intensive basic
training, research, development and innovation, and scientific qualification in technical and natural
sciences and in certain fields of economic and social sciences.
BME has eight faculties and 7 knowledge centers:
FACULTIES:
•
Faculty of Civil Engineering (ÉMK)
•
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (GPK)
•
Faculty of Architecture (ÉPK)
•
Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology (VBK)
•
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (VIK)
•
Faculty of Transportation Engineering (KSK)
•
Faculty of Natural Sciences (TTK)
•
Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences (GTK)
KNOWLEDGE CENTERS:
•
Biomechanical Research Centre
•
Biomedical Engineering Knowledge Centre
•
Inter-University Cooperative Research Centre
•
Advanced Vehicle Control Knowledge Centre
•
Information Technology Innovation and Knowledge Centre
•
Cooperative Research Centre for Intelligent Materials
•
BME Mobile Innovation Centre
NOBEL LAUREATES OF BME
Dénes Gábor (1900–1979)
holography, in 1971
Jenő Wigner (1902–1995)
theoretical physics, in 1963
György Oláh (1927)
carbonic chemistry, in 1994
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
4
2. Situation of women in sciences in the country
Universities have been operating in Hungary with shorter or longer interruptions since the
14th century, but women were allowed to obtain university degrees only a little over a
hundred years ago. They have, however, succeeded in counter-balancing the cultural
handicap deriving from the above situation during the recent decades, insomuch that since
the late 1990’s more women were studying in higher education institutions than men were.
Women in Hungary have been allowed to study at universities from 1895 onwards due to a
royal resolution, but the monarch Franz Joseph restricted the studies of women: he only
permitted them to attend art, medical and pharmaceutical faculties. There had not been any
revolutionary changes in this regard until 1945, when women were still excluded from law,
engineering, veterinarian and economical faculties. In consequence of the democratisation
after 1945, radical changes took place regarding this matter as well: in August 1946 the
democratic Hungarian Parliament passed a law creating equal conditions for men and
women concerning their studying in tertiary education. Consequently all universities and
colleges, except for the theological and military faculties, became available for women. As a
result of this political decision the number of women graduates sky-rocketed in the second
half of the 1950’s, and this increase has been a trend ever since despite interruptions of
various significance.
In the last one and a half decades revolutionary changes have occurred in the field of
education: the number of students in higher education has grown from 102,387 to 421 520,
quadrupling the first number.
In university basic training, from where the future researchers emerge, the proportion of
women is the smallest in the fields of computing, engineering, physical sciences and
mathematics in addition to security services. This proportion is also under 50% in the
following areas: architecture and building, agriculture and manufacturing and processing. On
the other hand the percentage of women is outstanding in the field of social services,
veterinary sciences, humanities, journalism and information management, business
administration and life sciences.
In the 2004/2005 academic year the proportion of female Ph.D. students was 45.8% at fulltime courses, 41.7% at part-time courses and 41.7% at correspondence courses.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
5
The table 5. clearly shows that the proportion of women among Ph.D. students is the highest
in the field of humanities and health care.
The career building of female graduates is a much slower process than men’s and the
situation of women seems to be even more complicated should they choose scientific
research as their objective. Hungarian researchers have two options: they can work either at
a university department or at a scientific institute. The latter also falls into two categories:
they either belong to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences or are somehow related to the
corporate sector. This research system was established in Hungary after 1949. The newly
established institutions evolved rapidly during the 1950’s absorbing all the available
researchers — almost all of whom were men. Additionally it can be observed that despite the
constantly increasing level of women’s proportion in higher education from the 1950’s
onwards, women’s participation in the work of scientific institutes lag behind the figures that
could be expected from their percentage within the white-collar professions.
A new system of scientific evaluation was introduced in Hungary after 1949, depriving
universities of the right of granting scientific degrees, and instead conveying this right to the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS). In accordance with the Soviet example two new
scientific degrees were introduced which differed from the European system: i) Doctor of
Sciences (D.Sc); and ii) Candidate of Science (C.Sc), the latter being the equivalent of a
Ph.D. degree. Following the change of regime, the right of granting Ph.D. degrees was
returned to the universities in 1993.
It is clear from the chart that the rate of female researchers rose significantly in the early
1990’s and since 1995 it has practically been at the same level without any change, while if
we look behind the proportions remarkable drifts can be discovered in the number of
researchers. The increase in the number of female researchers during the 1990–1995 period
took place simultaneously with a drastic drop — almost with one third — of the number of
research workers. By 2005 the total number of researchers had reached the former level of
30,000, but the proportion of women did not decrease. This drastic fall of research headcount
can be explained by several factors. Firstly there were considerable cutbacks both in the
academic sector and in the sector of research institutions after the change of regime (1990)
and in addition to this most of the research institutions of large state enterprises were
eliminated. Secondly the earnings of scientific researchers remained at a low level and the
better earning conditions available in the private sector of the economy tempted men away
from the “citadels of science”. This process comes into action in the case of men rather,
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
6
because women find it much harder to conciliate the work hours and intensity expected in the
private sector with their family and household duties, i.e. with the so-called traditional female
roles.
The aggregated dissimilarity index 1, which means the proportion of researchers who should
change to another field in order to equalise the male-female participation in all fields,
amounts to 23%. The value of this index is 18% for higher education, 24% for budgetary
institutions and 8% for the private sector.
The feminisation ratio 2 for all researchers is 51.9%. In the higher education sector there are
57.64 women for 100 male researchers, while this number is 61.71 in budgetary institutions
and 29.22 in the private sector. There are only two segments that are female-dominated,
medical sciences and humanities — both in budgetary institutions.
Table 1: The number of graduates in comparison with the whole population
– gender split, 1930–2001
Women’s
Total
Total number Graduated Graduated
Year
percentage within
men
women
population of graduates
the graduates (%)
1930
78 451
8 434
9,7%
8 685 109
86 885
1941
79 577
12 102
13,2%
9 316 074
91 679
1949
80 526
16 035
16,6%
9 204 799
96 561
1960
136 010
40 131
22,8%
9 961 044
176 141
1970 10 322 099
206 897
93 661
31,2%
300 558
1980 10 701 063
289 200
199 350
40,8%
488 550
1990 10 381 959
371 860
321 300
46,4%
693 160
2001 10 078 138
463 652
470 384
50,3%
934 036
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; KSH, 1990, 1997, 2001
Table 2: The tendency of the number of undergraduates in
all the institutions of higher education (Full-time course,
part-time course and correspondence course together)
Year
Male
Female
Proportion of
Total
women (%)
1950
24 778
7 723
23,8%
32 501
1960
29 867
14 718
33,0%
44 585
1970
46 104
34 432
42,7%
80 536
1980
50 852
50 314
49,7%
101 166
1990
50 880
51 507
50,3%
102 387
2000
141 130
164 572
53,8%
305 702
2005
176 007
245 513
58,2%
421 520
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; OM, 1959–2005
1
2
The proportion of male and female researchers that should change fields so that the proportion of women
would be equal to that of men in all fields of science.
The number of women falling on 100 men in a given sector.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
7
Table 3: The proportion of female undergraduates in higher education
according to field of study by the ISCED categorisation on all the courses
(2001–2005)
2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004 2004/2005 2004/2005
ISCED fields of science
Teacher training and
education science
Arts
Humanities
Social and behavioural
science
Journalism and
information management
Business and
administration
Law
Life sciences
Physical sciences
Mathematics and
statistics
Computing
Engineering and
engineering trades
Manufacturing and
processing
Architecture and building
Agriculture, forestry and
fishery
Veterinary
Health
Social services
Personal services
Environmental protection
Security services
In total
70,4%
70,2%
68,0%
69,6%
Number of
women
46 376
56,6%
67,2%
61,4%
56,9%
67,4%
60,1%
56,4%
67,8%
61,5%
57,3%
68,8%
63,1%
3 213
23 205
21 249
69,8%
70,5%
69,1%
72,0%
11 051
63,8%
66,9%
66,3%
67,9%
66 777
57,3%
61,1%
63,2%
37,0%
59,0%
62,8%
37,6%
39,8%
60,2%
65,4%
37,1%
40,3%
59,3%
65,9%
38,0%
40,9%
11 186
1 600
1 393
514
25,5%
13,0%
26,9%
10,6%
27,1%
9,7%
23,8%
9,2%
3 312
3 239
54,9%
55,0%
53,0%
54,0%
2 646
36,6%
45,6%
36,0%
45,4%
64,1%
44,7%
35,7%
44,7%
3 734
5 117
54,1%
71,7%
81,6%
69,7%
53,7%
22,6%
56,1%
60,6%
73,1%
81,5%
71,3%
53,7%
33,3%
57,4%
65,3%
75,1%
81,5%
70,1%
52,8%
30,8%
57,7%
71,8%
72,8%
82,7%
70,0%
52,3%
37,2%
59,1%
659
13 439
10 429
11 797
3 451
2 946
247 333
Women % Women % Women % Women %
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; OM, 2005
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
8
Table 4: The number of researchers and the proportion of women
1970
1980
1990
2000
2005
Number of researchers
23 460
38 705
30 256 27 876 31 407
Number of women
5 161
10 436
8 489
9 537
10 731
Proportion of women
(%)
22,0%
27,0%
28,1%
34,2%
34,2%
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; KSH 1988,1991,1997 and
2006a
Table 5: Researchers with a scientific degree, 2005
Doctors of HAS*
Proportion of
women (%)
Women
Total
Total
Natural
107
11,4%
sciences
942
2 269
Technical
sciences
19
63,0%
301
1 281
Medical
sciences
71
13,9%
509
1 860
Agricultural
sciences
10
5,7%
175
853
Social sciences
and humanities
120
17,9%
671
3 348
In total
2 598
327
12,6%
9 611
Ph.D
Women
Proportion of
women (%)
519
22,9%
100
7,8%
416
22,4%
181
21,2%
878
2 094
26,2%
21,8%
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; KSH, 2006a
* HAS= Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Table 6: Distribution of researchers, 2005
Field of science
Natural
sciences
Engineering and
technology
Medical
sciences
Agricultural
sciences
Social sciences
Humanities
In total
Researchers
4 871
Women
1 416
Proportion of
women (%)
29,1%
8 939
1 781
19,9%
4 255
1 930
45,4%
1 964
716
36,5%
4 808
6 570
31 407
1 749
3 139
10 731
36,4%
47,8%
34,2%
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; KSH 2006a and OM 2005, own
calculation
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
9
Table 7: Staff headcounts at research centres in 2005
Scientists and
engineers
Of which women
Proportion of
women (%)
Technicians
Of which women
Proportion of
women (%)
Other
Of which women
Proportion of
women (%)
Total
Of which women
Proportion of
women (%)
Budgetary
institutions
Higher
education
Private
sector
In total
6 213
2 371
19 086
6 979
6 108
1 381
31 407
10 731
38,2%
2 465
1 572
36,6%
3 937
2 894
22,6%
2 261
1 337
34,2%
8 663
5 803
63,8%
2 949
1 974
73,5%
5 679
4 299
59,1%
1 025
406
67,0%
9 653
6 679
66,9%
11 627
5 917
75,7%
28 702
14 172
39,6%
9 394
3 124
69,2%
49 723
23 213
50,9%
49,4%
33,3%
46,7%
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; KSH 2006a
Figure 1: The proportion of women within the R&D staff by sector and
in total, 2005
80%
70%
60%
Budgetary institutions
Higher education
50%
40%
Private sector
In total
30%
20%
10%
0%
Scientists and
engineers
Technicians
Other
Total
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
10
Figure 2: The distribution of women and men employed in
research by type of employment, 2005
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
28,8%
11,2%
10,8%
19,4%
17,4%
Other
25,0%
Technicians
78,0%
Scientists and engineers
63,2%
46,2%
Women
Men
Total
Table 8: Women in R&D decision-making (2007)
Name of Body
The Presidium of the HAS
HAS Governing Board
HAS Council of Doctors Members
HAS Council of Doctors Substitute
Members
Science and Technology Policy,
Competitiveness Advisory Board (4T)
Science and Technology Policy Council
(TTPK)
Research and Development Innovation
Council (KTIT)
Higher Education and Research Council
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
Number of
members
23
12
25
Number of
women
1
1
1
Proportion of
female
members (%)
4,4%
8,3%
4,0%
21
4
19,0%
11
0
0,0%
17
0
0,0%
15
20
0
1
0,0%
5,0%
11
Figure 3: Tipical university carrier path in Hungary all fields of science,
2005 (%)
90
%
81,2
80
70
66,2
60
50
53,8
54,8
46,2
45,2
57
51
49
43
40
Women
Men
33,8
30
20
18,8
10
0
Students
PhD
students
Lecturers
Assistant Associate Professors
professors professors
Figure 4: The proportion of women in the different sectors 19902005
% 45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
38,2
31,1
Governmental
institutions
36,6
29,1
Higher education
sector
24,7 22,6
1990
2005
Private sector
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
12
Figure 5: The changing of women’s proportion among Hungarian researchers by field of science between 1990
and 2005
60,0
50,0
43,5
36,5
40,0
% 30,0
47,8
45,4
29,1
23,9
36,4
32,4
1990
2005
23,8
21,7 19,9
20,0
10,0
0
0,0
Natural sciences
Engineering and
technology
Medical sciences
Agricultural
sciences
Social sciences
Humanities
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007
13
Table 9: The gender split of the participants of Ph.D programmes by field of science, 2005
Type of training
Field of science
Total
Natural sciences 1 040
Engineering and
751
technology
Medical
774
sciences
Agricultural
277
sciences
Social sciences
764
Humanities
1 712
In total
5 318
Full-time
Women Women
%
416
40,00%
133
17,71%
Correspondence
Total Women Women
%
119
40,48%
294
93
22,14%
420
Total
32
Part-time
Women Women
%
13
40,63%
Total
1 334
1 203
In total
Women Women
%
535
40,10%
239
19,87%
396
51,16%
293
145
49,49%
-
-
-
1 067
541
50,70%
141
50,90%
237
105
44,30%
-
-
-
514
246
47,86%
352
999
2 437
46,07%
58,35%
45,83%
842
489
2 575
318
299
1 079
37,77%
61,15%
41,90%
16
48
7
20
43,75%
41,67%
1 622
2 201
7 941
677
1 298
3 536
41,74%
58,97%
44,53%
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; OM, 2005
Table 10: Academic Staff, 2004/2005
University
College
Assoc. Assist. Assist.
Assoc. Assist. Assist. lang.
PE
dormitory other
Professor prof
prof
lecturer Professor prof
prof
lecturer teacher teacher teacher techers In total Women
1 726
2 948
3 017
2 358
857
1 909
1 643
905
791
162
49
527
Full-time
16 892 6 528
Women in
206
791
1 078
1 035
241
835
926
552
612
46
13
193
n.d.
6 528
full-time
248
358
415
268
89
172
207
130
51
16
5
87
572
Part-time
2 046
With
129
185
169
181
82
220
216
189
263
75
4
3 136
1 836
contract for
4 849
work
2 103
3 491
3 601
2 807
1 028
2 301
2 066
1 224
1 105
253
58
3 750 23 787 8 936
In total
Proportion
11,94% 26,83% 35,73% 43,89% 28,12% 43,74% 56,36% 60,99% 77,37% 28,40% 26,53% 36,62% 38,65%
n.d.
of full-time
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
occupied
women (%)
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; OM, 2005
Table 11: The distribution of researchers by sector, 2005
Budgetary institutions
Higher education
Total Women Women Total Women Women
%
%
Natural sciences
624
28,8% 2 552
744
29,2%
2 163
Engineering and
technology
117
20,1% 3 076
549
17,8%
581
Medical sciences
359
56,9% 3 378 1 475
43,7%
631
Agricultural
sciences
340
45,0%
307
32,6%
756
942
Social sciences
242
33,5% 3 936 1 456
37,0%
722
Humanities
689
50,7% 5 202 2 448
47,1%
1 360
19
In total
6 213 2 371
38,2%
086
6 979
36,6%
Source: Palasik–Papp 2007; KSH 2006a, numerical data
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
Private sector
Women Women
%
48
30,8%
156
Total
Total
4 871
In total
Women Women
%
1 416
29,1%
5 282
246
1 115
96
21,1%
39,0%
8 939
4 255
1 781
1 930
19,9%
45,4%
266
150
8
69
51
2
25,9%
34,0%
25,0%
716
1 749
3 139
36,5%
36,4%
47,8%
6 108
1 381
22,6%
1 964
4 808
6 570
31
407
10 731
34,2%
3. Statistical background at the university
3.1. Tables of data of faculties
1.1.1. Faculty of Civil Engineering (ÉMK)
Faculty of Civil Engineering
1994/1995
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
T
M
F
Positions 3
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the Academy
of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate
from this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members
deciding on employment
(board of the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of international
projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
T
25
31
75
53
15
3
1
0
1
204
89
1
0
9
16
0
0
0
0
0
26
11
26
31
84
69
15
3
1
0
1
230
100
37
46
52
90
10
4
1
0
0
240
89
1
2
5
20
1
0
0
0
0
29
11
38
48
57
110
11
4
1
0
0
269
100
17
32
64
18
10
3
1
0
0
145
87
2
1
10
9
0
0
0
0
0
22
13
19
33
74
27
10
3
1
0
0
167
100
123
61
24
2
147
63
226
30
29
3
255
33
76
50
15
6
91
56
6
0
6
10
0
10
5
1
6
190
26
216
266
32
298
131
22
153
n.d.
5
1
6
4
1
5
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
35
69
16
31
51
n.d.
n.d.
7
88
1
13
8
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
57 881 35 275
67 118
8 020
3
Academic staff A, B, C, D: Grade A: Professors Grade B: Associated professors Grade C: Senior lecturers
and Lecturers Grade D: Researchers excluding PhD students
16
2004/2005
≤40
Faculty of Civil Engineering
Male
Female
41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
Grade A
Grade B
0
1 084
1 548
1 139
2 152
1 164
1 850
1 129
0
0
0
0
1 618
1 084
1 618
1 084
1 734
1 106
Grade C
668
751
820
746
671
774
809
751
749
Grade D
629
619
799
682
0
695
850
772
727
1 235
1 722
1 769
1 575
0
0
0
0
1 575
0
0
2 789
2 789
0
0
0
0
2 789
0
0
4 560
4 560
0
0
0
0
4 560
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
EUR, gross
Head of
department
Deputy dean
Dean of
faculty
Vice rector
Av.
T
Wages at the Faculty of Civil Engineering
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
17
2
1.1.2. Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (GPK)
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
1994/1995
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
T
M
F
Positions
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the
Academy of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate
from this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members
deciding on
employment (board of
the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of
international projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
T
22
51
97
64
17
3
1
1
0
256
89
0
4
14
13
0
0
0
0
0
31
11
22
55
111
77
17
3
1
1
0
287
100
29
40
44
152
17
4
1
0
0
287
91
0
2
9
17
0
0
0
0
0
28
9
29
42
53
169
17
4
1
0
0
315
100
19
43
61
44
13
3
1
0
1
185
92
0
4
7
5
0
1
0
0
0
17
8
19
47
68
49
13
4
1
0
1
202
100
157
77
26
5
183
82
262
24
27
4
289
28
98
67
12
4
110
71
2
0
2
5
0
5
2
0
2
236
31
267
291
31
322
167
16
183
n.d.
6
0
6
6
1
7
n.d.
n.d.
34
5
39
n.d.
68
99
1
1
69
n.d.
n.d.
18
95
1
5
19
n.d.
42 455
50 328
127 294
8 000
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
18
2
2004/2005
EUR, gross
≤40
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Male
Female
41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
Av.
T
Grade A
0
0
1 453
1 453
0
0
0
0
1 453
Grade B
Grade C
1 084
671
989
657
863
744
979
691
1 084
581
1 084
797
677
753
948
710
963
700
Grade D
505
760
726
664
2 012
0
774
1 393
1 028
1 453
0
0
0
0
1 453
Head of
department
Deputy dean
0
1 235
1 671
0
0
1 944
1 944
0
0
1 959
1 959
1 951
Dean of faculty
0
0
3 715
3 715
0
0
0
0
3 715
Vice rector
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Rector
0
0
5 729
5 729
0
0
0
0
5 729
Wages at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
19
2
1.1.3. Faculty of Architecture (ÉPK)
Faculty of Architecture
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
1994/1995
M
F
T
Positions
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the
Academy of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate
from this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members
deciding on
employment (board of
the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of
international projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
2004/2005
T
18
30
79
15
12
4
1
0
0
159
85
0
3
18
8
0
0
0
0
0
29
15
18
33
97
23
12
4
1
0
0
188
100
22
23
59
80
12
1
3
0
0
200
83
1
4
14
22
1
0
0
0
0
42
17
23
27
73
102
13
1
3
0
0
242
100
20
22
73
17
10
4
1
0
0
147
83
0
5
18
7
1
0
0
0
0
31
17
20
27
91
24
11
4
1
0
0
178
100
120
22
24
5
144
27
190
14
34
2
224
16
86
44
25
5
111
49
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
2
142
29
171
204
36
240
132
30
162
n.d.
5
0
5
5
0
5
36
30
6
36
26
10
36
n.d.
14
78
4
22
18
n.d.
n.d.
2
67
1
33
3
n.d.
44 534
13 184
31
EUR, gross
≤40
5
5 736
Faculty of Architecture
Male
Female
41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
8 000
Av.
T
Grade A
0
1 594
1 531
1 563
0
0
0
0
1 563
Grade B
Grade C
1 084
586
1 074
693
1 058
629
1 072
636
0
608
0
662
1 102
645
1 102
638
1 087
637
Grade D
710
0
1 016
863
900
0
929
914
889
1 757
1 523
0
0
1 281
1 281
1 402
Head of
department
Deputy dean
0
1 290
0
1 273
1 604
1 438
0
0
0
0
1 438
Dean of faculty
0
0
3 715
3 715
0
0
0
0
3 715
Vice rector
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Rector
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
Wages at the Faculty of Architecture
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
20
2
1.1.4. Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology (VBK)
Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology
1994/1995
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
T
M
F
Positions
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the Academy
of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate from
this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members deciding
on employment (board of
the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of international
projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets international , €
2004/2005
EUR, gross
T
27
39
46
46
11
3
1
1
0
174
83
1
3
11
20
0
0
0
0
0
35
17
28
42
57
66
11
3
1
1
0
209
100
45
43
26
82
13
3
1
0
0
213
77
0
10
5
49
0
0
0
0
0
64
23
45
53
31
131
13
3
1
0
0
277
100
32
32
20
21
11
2
1
1
0
120
82
2
8
5
10
0
1
0
0
0
26
18
34
40
25
31
11
3
1
1
0
146
100
74
84
26
9
100
93
184
21
57
8
241
29
31
71
10
14
41
85
5
0
5
10
0
10
3
1
4
163
35
198
215
65
280
105
25
130
n.d.
5
0
5
5
0
5
45
38
3
41
31
5
36
n.d.
57
66
30
34
87
n.d.
n.d.
31
82
7
18
38
n.d.
71 021
33 584
38
7
67 950 24 865
Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology
Male
Female
Av.
≤40 41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
T
Grade A
Grade B
0
1 121
1 571
1 144
1 657
1 142
1 614
1 136
0
0
0
1 121
1 641
1 147
1 641
1 134
1 627
1 135
Grade C
839
850
866
851
Grade D
937
850
695
827
799
0
889
844
848
745
850
0
798
812
Head of
department
Deputy dean
0
1 828
1 777
1 803
0
0
0
0
1 803
0
0
2 282
2 282
0
0
2 183
2 183
2 233
Dean of faculty
0
0
3 715
3 715
0
0
0
0
3 715
Vice rector
0
0
4 139
4 139
0
0
0
0
4 139
Wages at the Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
21
2
1.1.5. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (VIK)
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
1994/1995
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
T
M
F
Positions
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the
Academy of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate
from this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members
deciding on
employment (board of
the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
26
71
111
56
13
5
1
1
0
284
92
0
4
17
5
0
0
0
0
0
26
8
26
75
128
61
13
5
1
1
0
310
100
31
85
103
203
13
5
1
0
0
441
94
1
6
9
13
0
0
0
0
0
29
6
32
91
112
216
13
5
1
0
0
470
100
30
72
115
58
10
5
1
1
0
292
93
0
4
10
7
0
0
0
0
0
21
7
30
76
125
65
10
5
1
1
0
313
100
164
100
20
6
184
106
409
39
20
6
429
45
158
112
13
8
171
120
4
0
4
5
0
5
5
0
5
268
26
294
453
26
479
275
21
296
n.d.
5
0
5
5
0
5
33
40
3
43
40
2
42
113
95
6
5
119
n.d.
5
7
69
n.d.
64
93
520 176
71 436
29
4
n.d.
%
Leaders of
international projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
2004/2005
n.d.
EUR, gross
≤40
156 688 74 006
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
Male
Female
Av.
41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
T
Grade A
Grade B
0
1 353
Grade C
619
669
Grade D
631
1 395
0
3 039
0
Head of
department
Deputy dean
Dean of
faculty
Vice rector
T
1 614
1 308
0
0
0
774
772
687
735
778
994
836
761
764
930
0
0
1 426
1 426
1 178
2 035
2 537
0
0
0
0
2 537
3 257
2 442
2 850
0
0
0
0
2 850
0
0
3 749
3 749
0
0
0
0
3 749
0
0
4 127
4 127
0
0
0
0
4 127
1 548
1 352
1 681
1 219
0
1 398
0
1 086
1 614
1 197
Wages at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
22
2
1.1.6. Faculty of Transportation Engineering (KSK)
Faculty of Transportation Engineering
1994/1995
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
T
M
F
Positions
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the Academy
of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate from
this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members deciding
on employment (board of
the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of international
projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
2004/2005
T
7
32
62
15
8
3
1
0
0
128
89
1
3
7
2
2
1
0
0
0
16
11
8
35
69
17
10
4
1
0
0
144
100
17
27
38
125
8
4
0
0
0
219
90
0
5
2
13
2
0
1
0
0
23
10
17
32
40
138
10
4
1
0
0
242
100
11
24
51
12
8
4
0
0
0
110
89
2
3
6
0
2
0
1
0
0
14
11
13
27
57
12
10
4
1
0
0
124
100
84
32
8
5
92
37
182
18
18
1
200
19
62
35
6
5
68
40
1
0
1
2
0
2
1
0
1
117
13
130
202
19
221
98
11
109
n.d.
4
1
5
4
1
5
30
27
6
33
28
5
33
n.d.
18
95
1
5
19
n.d.
n.d.
8
62
5
38
13
n.d.
28
2
393 744 16 000
≤40
58 805 55 895
Faculty of Transportation Engineering
Male
Female
Av.
41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
T
Grade A
Grade B
1 594
774
0
1 130
1 579
1 053
1 587
986
0
0
0
0
1 641
1 130
1 641
1 130
1 614
1 058
Grade C
602
706
786
698
0
820
805
813
755
Grade D
136
583
442
387
0
0
0
0
387
0
0
1 725
1 725
0
0
1 792
1 792
1 758
0
0
2 038
2 038
0
0
0
0
2 038
0
0
0
0
0
0
4 033
4 033
4 033
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
EUR, gross
Head of
department
Deputy dean
Dean of
faculty
Vice rector
Wages at the Faculty of Transportation Engineering
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
23
2
1.1.7. Faculty of Natural Sciences (TTK)
1994/1995
M
F
T
Positions
Grade A
Grade B
Grade C
Grade D
Head of department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
Vice rector
Rector
TOTAL
%
Degrees
Master degree
PhD degree/over
Member of the Academy
of Sciences
TOTAL
Councils
Members of Senate
from this faculty (former
Council of University)
Board members
deciding on employment
(board of the faculty)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of international
projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
Faculty of Natural Sciences
1999/2000
2004/2005
M
F
T
M
F
T
20
28
50
29
8
1
1
0
0
137
78
0
5
23
11
0
0
0
0
0
39
22
20
33
73
40
8
1
1
0
0
176
100
13
43
23
43
15
3
1
0
0
141
82
0
9
12
10
0
0
0
0
0
31
18
13
52
35
53
15
3
1
0
0
172
100
24
45
36
14
12
3
1
0
0
135
80
0
13
11
8
0
1
0
0
0
33
20
24
58
47
22
12
4
1
0
0
168
100
76
51
30
9
106
60
120
25
25
6
145
31
23
88
12
20
35
108
4
0
4
5
0
5
8
0
8
131
39
170
150
31
181
119
32
151
n.d.
4
0
4
4
0
4
n.d.
44
7
51
50
11
61
n.d.
39
93
3
7
42
n.d.
n.d.
13
81
3
19
16
n.d.
45 394 14 005
24 075 73 411
Wages at the Faculty of Natural Sciences
2004/2005
EUR, gross
≤40
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Male
Female
41-50 ≥51
T
≤40 41-50 ≥51
Av.
T
Grade A
0
1 778
1 374
1 576
0
0
0
0
1 576
Grade B
Grade C
907
709
1 111
764
1 109
764
1 042
746
0
634
1 114
820
1 033
836
1 073
763
1 058
755
Grade D
732
973
736
814
670
967
516
718
766
0
1 588
1 764
1 676
0
0
0
0
1 676
0
0
1 669
1 669
0
0
1 817
1 817
1 743
Head of
department
Deputy dean
Dean of faculty
0
0
3 053
3 053
0
0
0
0
3 053
Vice rector
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
© BMERector
Research/WiTEC
0 Hungary
0
24
2
1.1.8. Total: Faculties of Technologies and Natural Sciences
M
1994/1995
F
T
Positions
Grade A
145
Grade B
282
Grade C
520
Grade D
278
Head of department
84
Deputy dean
22
Dean of faculty
7
Vice rector
3
Rector
1
TOTAL
1342
%
87
Degrees
Master degree
798
PhD degree/over
427
Member of the
22
Academy of Sciences
TOTAL
1247
Councils
Senate (former Council
of University)
Board members
deciding on
employment (boards of
the faculties)
Projects
Leaders of national
projects
%
Leaders of international
projects
%
Project budgets –
national, €
Project budgets –
international, €
2004/2005
EUR, gross
≤40
Total
1999/2000
M
F
T
2004/2005
F
M
T
3
22
99
75
2
1
0
0
0
202
13
148
194
304
307
619
345
353
775
86
88
23
24
7
8
3
0
1
0
1544 1741
100
88
3
38
56
144
4
0
1
0
0
246
12
197
345
401
919
92
24
9
0
0
1987
100
153
270
420
184
74
24
6
2
1
1134
87
6
38
67
46
3
3
1
0
0
164
13
159
308
487
230
77
27
7
2
1
1298
100
158
41
956
468
1573
171
210
30
1783
201
534
467
93
62
627
529
0
22
37
0
37
26
2
28
240
2021
1027
157
1184
344
61
405
85
15
143
23
86
14
199
1446 1781
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
n.d.
166
167 886 33 401
72 523
36 028
Total
Male
41-50 ≥51
Female
41-50 ≥51
Av.
T
≤40
Grade A
1 594
1 608
1 632
1 611
0
0
1 633
1 633
1 622
Grade B
Grade C
1 058
671
1 134
727
1 087
769
1 093
722
1 084
671
1 023
775
1 082
819
1 063
755
1 078
739
Grade D
611
863
740
738
1 082
837
899
939
839
1 235
1 784
1 785
1 601
0
0
1 537
1 537
1 569
Head of
department
Deputy dean
T
0
2 265
2 110
2 187
0
0
1 986
1 986
2 087
Dean of faculty
0
0
3 751
3 751
0
0
4 033
4 033
3 892
Vice rector
0
0
4 133
4 133
0
0
0
0
4 133
Rector
0
0
5 729
5 729
0
0
0
0
5 729
Wages at the Faculties of Technologies and Natural Sciences
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
25
2
3.2. Short summary of the statistical data
Number of women among regular students (1952-2005)
18000
16000
14000
Number of students
12000
Women (Total)
10000
Regular students
(Total)
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
19521953
19541955
19681969
19741975
19791980
19841985
19891990
19941995
19981999
20002001
20052006
Year
Women could study in the universities of Hungary since 1895. Before that time the doors of
the Technical University remained closed to female students. Fundamental change in this
issue did not occur until 1945 and women were forbidden to study at the faculties of law,
engineering, veterinary medicine and economics. The democratic wave after 1945 meant a
turning point in the situation: the democratic Hungarian parliament issued a law, creating
equal opportunities for women to study at universities and colleges. As a result, with the
exception of the military and theological colleges, all institutions of the higher education
opened their doors to female students. 4 The Technical University of Budapest, Hungary’s
largest university has graduated many leading and extinguished woman scholars from this
time.
4
Law No. XXII. in 1946. In: Magyar Törvénytár 1946, 96–97. [Hungarian Body of Laws, p. 96-97., in Hungarian]
26
About academic staff at BME
The technical faculties and Faculty of Natural Sciences employed altogether 1298 people
in the academic year 2004/2005. Only 164 of them were women, which means a proportion
of 13%. The available data supply doesn't contain information about the number of
researchers by age groups. The proportion of the female and male employees at each
hierarchical level varies significantly both regarding the 3 academic years and the faculties
concerned, as it is illustrated by the following diagrams. There is one common feature in all
diagrams though: there is a much higher proportion of women on the entry levels than on
the higher levels of the hierarchy, except for the Faculty of Transportation Engineering.
The academic staff at the BME, 1994/95–2004/2005
Faculty of Transportation Engineering
Faculty of Natural Sciences
120
120
100
100
40
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
60
40
20
20
0
Grade D
Grade C
Grade B
Grade A
0
Head of
department
Grade D
120
120
100
100
60
40
Grade A
Head of
department
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
60
40
20
20
0
0
Grade D
Grade B
80
%
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
80
Grade C
Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Inf ormatics
%
%
60
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
80
%
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
80
Grade C
Grade B
Grade A
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
Head of
department
Grade D
Grade C
Grade B
Grade A
Head of
department
27
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
Faculty of Architecture
120
120
100
100
%
60
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
80
%
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
80
60
40
40
20
20
0
0
Grade D
Grade C
Grade B
Grade A
Head of department
Grade D
Grade C
Faculty of Civ il Engineering
Grade B
Grade A
Head of
department
Total
120
120
100
100
%
60
40
60
40
20
20
0
Grade D
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
80
%
Male 1994/1995
Female 1994/1995
Male 1999/2000
Female 1999/2000
Male 2004/2005
Female 2004/2005
80
0
Grade C
Grade B
Grade A
Head of department
Grade D
Grade C
Grade B
Grade A
Head of
department
We only found available data on research projects for the year 2004/2005. These show that with
only some exceptions usually men applicants have much bigger budgets for their projects than
women. The number of projects owned by the researchers in each faculty is indicated by the
following table. Altogether 13% of the employees are women, they lead 15% of the national and
14% of the international projects. This data is not so balanced at each faculty. Let us examine the
Faculty of Natural Sciences for instance: 20% of the research employees there are female but
they only have 7% of the national projects, but the women have 19% of the international projects.
Here the women have three times more money than men as far as international projects go. At the
Faculty of Transportation Engineering, 11% of female employees lead only 5% of the national but
38% of the international projects. The Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology also has
interesting data: 18% women employees have 34% of the national projects but only 7% of the
international ones. At the Faculty of Architecture, women lead more national and international
projects than their proportion among employees. The 17 female researchers (8%) at the Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering own only one of both the national and the international projects, this
means 1% and 5%, respectively. The Faculty of Civil Engineering shows balanced data regarding
international projects (13% female researchers and 13% female project leaders) but a high 31% of
the national projects are lead by women.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
28
Faculty
Natural
Sciences
Transport
. Eng.
Gender Male Fem Mal
.
e
El. Eng.
and
Chem.
Architectu Mechanic
Civil
Tech. and
re
al
Engineeri
Total
Fe Male Fe
m.
m.
Male
Fe
m.
Mal
e
Fe
m.
Mal
e
Fe
m.
Mal
e
Fe
m.
Mal
e
Fe
m.
Nr. of
employees
135
33
110
14
292
21
120
26
147
31
185
17
145
22
113 164
4
%
80
20
89
11
93
7
82
18
83
17
92
8
87
13
87
13
National
projects
39
3
18
1
113
6
57
30
14
4
68
1
35
16
344
61
%
93
7
95
5
95
5
66
34
78
22
99
1
69
31
85
15
Intern. project
13
3
8
5
64
5
31
7
2
1
18
1
7
1
143
23
%
81
19
62
38
93
7
82
18
67
33
95
5
88
13
86
14
Women and men in projects
Unfortunately BME doesn't have publicly available data about the number of publications and
citations for none of the years concerned.
4. Gender policy at the university
4.1. The state of the arts
In Hungary, the equality issues in the working places are legislated by the CXXV Act of 2003: law
on Equal Treatment and Promoting Equal Opportunities. It stipulates that only state owned
companies employing more than fifty people are required to do draft an Equality Plan. The Act
obliges the university to incorporate the promoting equality in the annual personnel development
plan or labour protection plan. BME did its own Plan for Equal Opportunities in 2005. But in this
plan there is only one statement about women: „plan for equal opportunities applies to women
also”. Only formal equality between the sexes, not real gender equality. It misses the
implementation of the measures has to be monitored.
•
There are not enough female scholars at BME;
•
BME do not have a gender-sensitive evaluation system;
•
Under-representation of women at Board/Senior Level;
•
Male dominated funding bodies, academic committees, panels and other decision-making
bodies;
•
Lack of work life balance policies;
•
Ageing of academic and research staff
•
75% of female professors at the BME are over 60.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
29
4.2. Promotion in science and at university
The exercise of the employer’s and appointment rights is due to the Law on Higher Education at
the university. The positions of university professors, associate professors, research professors,
scientific consultants and research fellows must be filled through public calls for proposals. People
with and without a public servant contract at the university are allowed to pass in applications. The
applications are ranked by the Senate in accordance with the judgement of the Board of the
Faculty. Before the evaluation of a call for application for a professor’s position the expert opinion
of the Hungarian Accreditation Committee must also be consulted. 5
The applications that meet the requirements for obtaining the position and initiating the
appointment are ranked by the Board of the Faculty, which is assisted by a committee of experts
from the faculty. In the case of university professors the Habilitation Committee of the University
must be consulted. These positions can only be obtained with an employment contract for a
definite period.
The application that satisfied the content of the majority of the members of the Board of Faculty
can be regarded as supported. If there are more than one such applicants, the one with the highest
rate of content should be regarded as the supported one. Whenever an applicant is unable to gain
the content of the majority of all the members of the Board, the application should be regarded as
rejected by the Board of the Faculty.
In the case of assistant lecturers, assistant professors, research workers, assistant research
workers and department engineers the head of department may decide of his/her own competence
and these appointments do not require an open call, thus get no publicity. These positions might
be obtained with definite term (for 3 and half years) and indefinite term employment contracts.
We do not have official data or central records on the advancement processes typical of the
university.
4.3. Bodies and committees – women in decision-making positions
There are two main platforms for decision-making at BME. The Senate (former Council of
University) is the highest authority, it is the governing council of the whole university and has 4-7
members from each faculty. It had one female member on the Faculty of Transportation
Engineering in 1999/2000 and in 2004/2005, one on the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in
2004/2005 and one on the Faculty of Civil Engineering in 1999/2000 and in 2004/2005. We don't
have data about the year 1994/1995.
5
Ftv. 106. § (4) bek.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
30
Decision-making at faculty level is executed by the Board of the Faculty, this determines the
promotions as well. The decisions at faculty level are made by the Board of the Faculty, which
also come to decision on appointments. We only have a deficient list of data regarding the gender
pattern of these Boards of Faculty, especially concerning the Faculties of Mechanical Engineering
and Civil Engineering, and the academic year 1994/1995. In the aggregate 12.5% of the members
were women in the academic year 1994/1995, 14% in 1999/2000 and 15.4% in 2004/2005.
There are very few women among heads of department as well, 2 out of 86 in 1994/1995, 4 out of
92 in 1999/2000 and 3 out of 77 in 2004/2005. There have been absolutely no female heads of
department at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and
Informatics and the Faculty of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology in the 3 years this study
refers to. (In 2005/06 academic year among 81 heads of departments are 6 women – 7.4%.)
Even only one woman dean has been appointed in the history of the university: Mrs Köves, Éva
Gilicze who was Dean at the Faculty of Transportation Engineering since 1997 to 2006.
4.4. Pay gap
BME doesn't have available gender disaggregated data about incomes for the academic years
1994/1995 and 1999/2000, only for 2004/2005. The payment situation this year gives a diverse
picture. Looking at data for the university as a whole, there seems to be no significant negative pay
gap for women.
Looking at the figures regarding the whole university there seem to be no significant differences in
the salaries of men and women to the disadvantage of the women, unless we take executive
allowances into consideration. But if we take them into account, the average salary of men is
higher, simply because most of the executive positions are held by men.
According to the 2005 KSH report, the average gross salary in Hungary is 157 000 HUF, which
actually means 102 000 HUF after tax deduction and contributions –approximately 628 €.
4.5. Work-life balance and family friendly working place
The balance of the areas of work, learning and private life is a great challenge at all institutional
levels. Practically it has a minimal culture in Hungary, which might explain why the university has
no coherent policy directed to this matter. It is so, in spite of the fact that there exists a university
infrastructure for developing a central policy, as the university has sport facilities, holiday resorts, a
theatre and an orchestra. The idea of a family-friendly workplace would not be an alien notion to
the university, since it has a kindergarden and nursery school for the children and grandchildren of
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
31
the employees. But the university has not worked out a solid concept for the relations regarding
parents staying at home with their children, which is still the question of agreement between the
leader of the given unit and the employee. The law allows both parents to have resort to child
allowances alternatively, but – according to some surveys, this opportunity is used by women
mostly.
At BME there is a nursery school and a kindergarden. The expenses of these institutions are borne
by the respective departments where the parents work ,and these costs must be distracted from
the bonus funds of these departments. Everybody accepted that the incurred costs be paid by
those concerned, but a more fair system could be formed by establishing a uniform support
system. Upon what grounds can we claim that the costs of those who take their children to the
university kindergarden are covered by the university, but not that of those who must take their
children to a private kindergarden for example due to transport considerations? As it is the group
of assistant and associate professors that is interested in this matter, this support – or its
withdrawal – is not a negligible question.
4.6. Best practices – bad practices
The management of the university supports all kinds of activities – conferences, exhibitions,
research – relating to gender and concerning scientific research and education. An exhibition on
the female scientists teaching and doing research at BME was opened at the university on March
8th 2007. A conference on the same theme was also organized together with the exhibition.
Another exhibition is about to be opened on 20th November 2007 with the title Student Life at the
225-year old BME, that has a separate case presenting the curiosities concerning female students.
The management of BME gave a positive response for the call of the WITEC European
Association for Women in Sciences, Engineering and Technology for joining the organisation. As a
result, BME has been participating in the work of WiTEC since autumn 2002. In November 2003
the university hosted a symposium that WiTEC organized in Budapest and was opened by rector
Detrekői Ákos.
As a result of a survey initiated by the EU, an ENWISE-report with the title Squandered
Opportunities was realized. To promote this study, a conference was held by the Department of
Innovation Management and History of Technology of the Faculty of Economic and Social
Sciences of BME, the Department of Research R&D Office of BME, the Hungarian Science and
Technology Foundation (HSTF) and WiTEC Hungary with the title The Situation of Female
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
32
Scientists in Technological Sciences in the European Union and in Hungary. The conference was
opened by the BME vice rector, dr. Zrínyi Miklós.
The BME also hosted a series of 10 lectures with the title Lectures on Gender Research between
January 16th 2004 and February 27th 2004, which was organized jointly by the Department of
Innovation Management and History of Technology, WiTEC and the Government Office for Equal
Opportunities.
The positive attitude of the university management towards the issue is a most important factor in
introducing the topic into the university public discourse and in raising awareness on the question.
Raising awareness and changing the attitudes and gender stereotypes have a crucial role in
shaping the general approaches of male and female researchers. Unfortunately even female
researchers tend not to know or to refuse the problem due to lack of proper information.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
33
5. Results of the questionnaires
1. Hypothesis
Scientific career is significantly influenced by the researchers’ family background. According to our
hypothesis, family background is a protective and supporting factor in the case of men, while in the
case of women family represents a risk factor instead, i.e. it impedes women’s scientific careers.
Our hypothesis is tested separately on male and female sub-samples. Scientific career is
measured by the variable “status”.
The independent family variables are formulated on the basis of the following variables:
-
marital status
-
children
-
o
children under the age of 3
o
children under the age of 18
o
living with children or not
good family background
In the model the impact of explanatory variables is corrected by age and time passed since
graduation.
In the final analysis the impact of occupations, disciplines and nationality is taken into account.
2. Hypothesis
Scientific career is significantly influenced by support received at the workplace.
In our hypothesis, more support (in this case: its perception) provides better job promotion
opportunities for researchers. In our opinion, support form the workplace is not gender specific, it
provides similar advantages and disadvantages for both sexes.
Scientific career is measured by the variable “status”.
The independent workplace variables are formulated on the basis of the following variables:
-
Flexibility at the research institute
o
flexible working hours
o
working from home
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
34
-
o
isolation form family
o
isolation from colleagues
Satisfaction with work
o
Infrastructure
o
Intellectual support
o
Time for research
o
Financial support for research
-
Supportive work place
-
Quality of tutoring
In the model the impact of explanatory variables is corrected by age and time passed since
graduation.
In the final analysis the impact of occupations, disciplines and nationality is taken into account.
3. Hypothesis
Men and women have the same opinion about support for equality between sexes.
4. Hypothesis
Men’s and women’s opinion about the factors of success in sciences are significantly different.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
35
1. Demographic characteristics of the university level samples
Table 1: The number and proportion of male and female
Gender
Number
%
Valid %
Male
115
55,3
56,7
Female
88
42,3
43,3
Missing
5
2,4
–
Total
208
100
100
Among the 208 people filling in our questionnaire there are 115 men and 88 women. So 55.3% of
the respondents are men, while 42.3% are women. Five respondents did not indicate gender.
That’s why the proportion of the men and the women answering the question on gender is: 56.7%
to 43.3%.
Table 2: The proportion of male and female by age
Age
%
Up to 35
40,8
32,8
36−55
Over 55
26,4
Total
100
On preparing the questionnaire, age groups were not defined previously, so all the respondents
could enter their age. The above indicated categories were defined subsequently, in the process of
evaluating, following the categories of the interviews.
Chart 1. The proportion of male and female by age
90
80
70
60
Age
50
40
30
20
10
0
1
6
11
16
21
26
31
36
41
46
51
56
61
66
71
76
81
86
91
96 101 106 111 116 121 126 131 136 141 146 151 156 161 166 171 176 181 186 191 196
Number
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
36
Chart 2. The proportion of male by
90
80
70
60
Age
50
40
30
20
10
0
1
4
7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97 100 103 106 109 112 115 118 121 124 127 130
Number
age
Chart 3. The proportion of female by age
70
60
50
Age
40
30
20
10
0
1
3
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
25
27
29
31
33
35
37
39
41
43
45
47
49
51
53
55
57
59
61
63
65
67
69
Number
Our hypothesis assumed that most respondents would belong to the 36-55 age group. But on the
contrary, the result of the survey shows that most respondents filling in the questionnaire belonged
to the age group under 35-year old both on the whole and in gender breakdown.
Table 3: Are you a member of an ethnic group? (N and %)
Gender
Number
%
Valid %
Male
8
3,8
4,0
Female
190
91,3
96,0
Missing
10
4,8
–
Total
208
100
100
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
37
Ten respondents denied to answer the question on ethnic affiliation. 190 respondents do not
belong to any ethnic minority, while 8 respondents declared to belong to an ethnic minority.
Table 4: About partnership
Number
Living alone
41
Living with
158
partner
Missing
9
Total
208
%
19,7
76,0
Valid %
20,6
79,4
4,3
100
–
100
20.6% of the respondents live alone, while 79.4% live in some kind of relationship.
Table 5: Marital status by sex (N)
Marital status
Male
Female
N
N
Unmarried,
31
35
single
Married
75
40
Divorced
7
10
Widow
0
1
Total
113
86
Table 6: Marital status by sex (%)
Marital status
Male
Female
(%)
(%)
Unmarried,
27,4
40,7
single
Married
66,4
46,4
Divorced
6,2
11,6
Widow
0
1,2
Total
100
100
Total
N
66
115
17
1
199
Total
(%)
33,2
57,8
8,5
0,5
100
33.2% of the respondents have not got married yet. This might correlate with the fact that more
than 40% of the respondents belong to the under 35 age group, while marriage has been
prolonged to around the age of 30 among the young graduated in the last decade, so this
generation is likely to be on the verge of founding a family. 57.8% of the respondents live in a
family, 8.5% are divorced and 0.5%, that is one person, is a widow.
Tables 5 and 6 show the gender distribution concerning relationships. Our preliminary hypothesis
was confirmed by the answers. That is: 27.4% of the men and 40.7% of the women are single. On
the other hand 66.4% of the men and only 46.5% of the women are married. There are fewer
divorced among the men, only 6.2%, while 11.6% of women are divorced. The conclusion can be
drawn: women working in technological areas get married later than men and their rate among the
unmarried is higher. Their relationships bear more conflicts than that of their male colleagues, and
their marriages end up in a divorce more often.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
38
Table 7: Number and age of children
Children
Male
N (%)
Having children
84
74,3%
Children, living with the
67
respondent
73,6%
Children under 3
24
27,0%
Children 3-7
19
21,6,0%
Children 8-18
84
74,3%
Female
N (%)
36
42,4%
34
82,9%
5
12,5%
11
28,2%
36
42,4%
Total
N (%)
120
60,6%
101
76,5%
29
22,5%
30
23,6
120
60,6%
60.6% of the respondents have at least one child, while 39.4% are childless. 74.3% of the men and
only 42.4% of the women have children.
Looking at the answers to the question on the number of children living in the same household with
the respondents, we can state that most respondents, namely 32.6% have one child, 25% have
two children, 23.5% have no children, 14.4% have three and 4.5% have four children at home.
73.6% of the men and 82.9% of the women live together with their children. 77.5% of the
respondents have no children under the age of three, 20.2% have one and 2.3% have two. 76.4%
of the respondents have no children between the age of 3 and 7, 18.1% have one child, 5.5% have
two children that belong to this age group. 58.1% of the respondents have no children between the
age of 7 and 18, while 17.1% have one child, 20.2% have two and 4.7% have three children
between 7 and 18. 37.1% of the men and 52.5% of the women have at least one child in the 7-18
age group.
Our hypothesis was confirmed, none of the indicators measuring family relationships revealed
significant correlation with any of the status variables of career advancement. The only correlation
was found between the elapsed time after graduation and advancement.
2. Career and job promotion related characteristics of the university samples by
gender
2.1 Career/Promotion
Concerning university position: 22.2% of the respondents are professors, 27.8% are associate
professors, and 18.2% are assistant professors and assistant lecturers, while 31.8% are research
workers, assistant research workers, department engineers or PhD students participating in
education. There are more men than women in higher positions among the respondents.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
39
Table 8: Male and female academic staff by position, N
Status 6
Male
Female
Total N
N
N
A
29
15
44
B
33
22
55
C
16
20
36
D
33
30
63
Total
111
87
198
Table 9: Male and female academic staff by position, %
Status
Male
Female
Total
(%)
(%)
(%)
A
26,1
17,2
22,2
B
29,7
25,3
27,8
C
14,4
23
18,2
D
29,7
34,5
31,8
Total
100
100
100
Table 10: Male and female academic staff by highest degree, N and %
Type of degree
Male
Female
Total
N (%)
N (%)
N (%)
MA
3
5
8
2,6%
5,9%
4,0%
M.Sc
41
32
73
35,7%
37,6%
36,5%
EdS
0
1
1
0,0%
1,2%
0.5%
PhD or higher
69
42
111
60,0%
49,4%
55,5%
MD
2
5
7
1,7%%
5,9%
3,5%
Total
115
85
200
100%
100%
100%
The highest degree of the 44.5% of the respondents is a Master of Science degree, 3.5% of them
have a medical degree. All the others have at least a PhD degree or higher. The rate of men and
women might be deemed balanced in both categories.
Table 11: Applied or not for a job promotion in the last 36 months
Female
Total N
Male
N (%)
N (%)
(%)
Applied for a job promotion
38
26
61
30,3%
27,7%
31%
Promotion failed
8
6
14
7%
7,2%
7,1%
Did not applied for a job promotion
76
60
136
66,7%
72,3%
69,0
Total
114
83
197
100,0% 100,0%
100,0%
6
Academic staff A, B, C, D:
Grade A: Professors Grade B: Associated professors Grade C: Senior
lecturers and Lecturers Grade D: Researchers excluding PhD students
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
40
26.3% of the men applied successfully for a fix status or for some kind of job promotion during the
last three years, while the same figure is 20.5% for the women. 69% of the respondents did not
apply either for an assignment or for a job promotion in the last three years – that is 66.7% among
the men and 72.3% among the women. Altogether 38 men applied for a status or a job promotion,
and 30 of them got the desired position (79%), while 17 out of the 23 female applicants ended up
successfully (74%). This is not a significant difference, although it might well reveal a tendency that
fewer women handed in an application and from the fewer applicants fewer women succeeded
than men.
Those who were not promoted or failed to get a fix status blamed their own, not satisfactory
performance on the interviews every time. Merely one woman and one man felt that a “prejudiced,
negative opinion concerning his/her gender” influenced the rejection. However, it was rather typical
of the men to feel that their lecturing (3 persons), research (4 persons) performance and
administrative work (3 persons) was not well appreciated, while the women were practically
blaming only themselves for their rejection.
69.7% of the men and 42% of the women answered that they were satisfied with their present
position to the question concerning the reasons and important factors why he/she had not applied
for a job promotion.
34.4% of the men and 53.2% of the women not having applied for a status or a job promotion
answered that they deem themselves unprepared for a higher position, and 35% of the men and
22.9% of the women mentioned the lack of support from colleagues in higher positions. 40.3% of
the men and 45.8% of the women from this category did not apply because they thought they
would have less time for their scientific tasks. 24.6% of the men and 28.6% of the women noticed
the intransparency of the promotion process as a barrier to their applications. The proportion of
those considering the criteria of promotion not to be definite is even a little bit higher than that
regarding both genders: 29.2% for the women and 26.7% for the men.
32.8% of the male and 18.4% of the female non-applicants omitted application because of bearing
the highest possible positions.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
41
2.2 Promotion /pursuing a PhD degree (in the case of PhD students)
Table 12: About PhD students
PhD students
Having scholarship
Support by the tutor
Foresees to continue working as researcher in the
next 5 years
Male
N (%)
75
65,2%
13
32,5%
22
62,9%
20
57,1%
Female
N (%)
47
53,4%
20
48,8%
32
82,1%
26
66,7%
Total N
(%)
122
60,1%
33
40,7%
54
73,0%
46
62,2%
34.8% of the men and 46.8% of the women participating in the survey are PhD students.
32.5% of the male and 48.8% of the female students receive a scholarship, on the average the
duration of the scholarships is 18 months for the women and 10 months for the men.
62.9% of the men and 82.1% of the women claimed to have received appropriate help from their
supervisors. It is an interesting figure that a greater proportion of the female PhD students think to
remain researchers in the following five years than men. There must be financial reasons behind
this phenomenon. In the Hungarian society men are still considered as the breadwinners of the
families, and the salaries of novice researchers and lecturers are not enough to support a family.
3. Work or workplace related characteristics of the sample by sex
3. 1
Flexibility in work
15.8% of the men and 8% of the women are unable to take a day-off at all. 68.4% of the men and
63.6% of the women can afford to take a day-off now and again. 15% of the men and 28.4% of the
women may take a day-off whenever they want to.
29.8% of the men and 14.8% of the women presume that they can not afford to work in flexible
hours. 35.1% of the men and 33% of the women consider that they may work in flexitime from time
to time. 35.1% of the men and 52.3% of the women deem their time-tables to be in accordance
with their demands on the average.
38.1% of the men and 40.9% of the women told that they could not afford to work at home. 45.1%
of the men and 51.1% of the women can work at home occasionally, while 16.8% of the men and
merely 8% of the women are able to work at home most of the time.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
42
52.7% of the men and 58% of the women did not complain of being isolated from their colleagues,
on the other hand 42.9% of the men and 36.4% of the women sometimes feel to be isolated from
colleagues, and 4.5 of the men and 5.7% of the women complained of being totally isolated from
others. .
31% of the men and 58% of the women – so almost the double – do not feel to be far from their
families and their loved ones. 50.4% of the men and only 35.2% of the women have sometimes the
feeling of being far from the family. 18.6% of the men and only 6.8% of the women complained of
being far from the family a lot.
The analysis shows that among the variables describing the flexibility of the workplace the
opportunity of taking days off correlates position. The more chance a researcher has to take days
off, the more likely it is that he or she is in a high position. The strongest correlation appears again
between the time passed after graduation and high position.
3. 2
Satisfaction with work
7.2% of the respondents are absolutely dissatisfied with the research infrastructure. Dissatisfied:
30.3%; satisfied: 55.3%; most satisfied: 4.8%; did not answer: 2.4%. No valid conclusions can be
drawn about the level of satisfaction by age groups: answers for satisfaction split quite evenly in all
the age groups. By gender it is rather women who are more dissatisfied with the given
infrastructure; there were no women among those who had been absolutely satisfied.
Sizing up intellectual support more than half of the respondents were satisfied and only 13 persons
deemed themselves absolutely dissatisfied.
More than the half the women and nearly the half the men regarded themselves as satisfied with
the time consumable on research.
The respondents were mainly dissatisfied with the financial support consumable on research –
independently of age. 2/3 of the male and 80% of the female respondents belonged here. (Only
one 35-year old man claimed to be absolutely satisfied with the financial support.)
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
43
3. 3
Research/tenders
Influential factors of applicants’ status
The great majority of the respondents believe that less administration could significantly ameliorate
the situation of the researchers applying for research support – independently of gender, status
and age. The rate of women claiming that better infrastructure could help improve the situation of
tender applicants is higher than that of men. Both men and women evaluated the enhancement of
the cooperation of domestic researchers positively. Only one man responded as “it would not
enhance it at all”. The same results came out regarding international cooperation. The opinions are
divided regarding the reduction of educational duties. Half of the men and 85% of the women told
that the situation of applicants could be better by reducing the amount of educational duties. The
opinions are evenly positive regarding foreign experiences; only 27 respondents claimed that
foreign experiences did not help scientists. It is interesting that only 15% of the respondents
thought that the better transparency of tender processes would not enhance the position of tender
applicants substantially, but within this group the rate for women is a bit lower.
Participation in national projects
National research project
Male
N (%)
Team leader
39
34,2%
Participating researcher
56
48,7%
Has already participated in a tender
74
64,9%
Successful application
65
58,6%
Female
N (%)
16
18,8%
38
43,7%
42
48,8%
34
39,5%
Total N
(%)
55
27,6%
94
46,5
116
58,0%
99
51,3%
Participation in international projects
International research project
Male
N (%)
Team leader
14
12,6%
Participating researcher
33
28,9%
Has already participated in a tender
54
49,1%
Successful application
47
42,7%
Female
N (%)
2
2,3%
26
29,9%
29
33,3%
23
28,0%
Total N
(%)
16
8,0%
59
29,4%
83
42,1%
70
36,5%
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
44
4.
The opinion of the researchers in the university samples about success in sciences
Our hypothesis was that there must be a significant difference in the factors of success in sciences
between the opinions of men and women. This hypothesis has been verified: women marked four
factors more important regarding success in sciences than men:
•
diligence, endurance
•
supporting professional workplace
•
good relationships
•
good relationships with the influential researchers of the given area of specialty
It is interesting that the men emphasized the importance of good family background more
stressfully than the women.
5. Scientific achievement/performance of the researchers
Scientific performance during the last 5 years
Supervising MA students
Supervising PhD students
Number of publications
Number of reviews
Number of abstracts for conferences
Male
N
3,11
1,46
14,5
2,81
15,71
Female
N
7,58
1,71
6,64
1,0
7,54
We must add that associate professors, assistant professors and assistant lecturers had the most
students during the last five years, independently of gender. According to studies, reviews and
conference applications, the associate professors lead the field with a great advantage in all the
categories, and then come the professors, and with a little gap the assistant professors, the
assistant lecturers and research workers follow after.
6. The opinion of the researchers in the university samples about supporting gender
equality in science
Our hypothesis was the following: the opinions of women and men regarding the enhancement of
gender equality correspond with each other. On the contrary the results revealed that more women
than men believed that efforts for the enhancement of gender equality had been more efficient in
the following five areas:
•
gender bound networks
•
gender bound research supports
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
45
•
introduction of gender quotas
•
transparency of work load
•
access to sources
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
46
6. Conclusions of the interviews
Interview number Main group of
Position
respondents
BME_1
Male
Professor
A
BME_2
Male
Associate professor
B
BME_3
Female
Assistant professor
C
BME_4
Female
Assistant professor
C
BME_5
Female
Associate professor
B
BME_6
Female
Professor
A
BME_7
Female
Research fellow
D
BME_8
Female
Professor
A
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
Age
Comment
He thinks achievement in
maths is very clear because
the scientists/researchers
are not attached to
laboratories, equipment or
aid.
36-55
He told a most interesting
historical example: in the
middle ages
mathematicians (all of them
were men) solved cubic
equations as if it had been
a duel. There might be
similar motives in sciences
even today which does not
fit women.
36-55
She has experienced
prejudice against female
architects – her own
prejudice against other
women and someone else’s
against her.
Up to 35 She works with extremely
dangerous chemical
materials so it affects her
plans/goals concerning her
own career. (She will finish
it when she is pregnant).
Over 55 She is very successful in
her field of research. For
her, family is at least as
important as her
professional career. She
disagrees with the quotasystem.
Over 55 She thinks that not every
woman wants a leading
position; attaining scientific
degrees is not the only way
to build up a career.
36-55
She feels discrimination
against young researchers
in their careers. Family
support is very important to
her.
Over 55 She is convinced that every
researcher (male or female)
needs support from one or
more mentors in order to
realize a science career.
Flexible working hours and
36–55
47
BME_9
Female
Associate professor
B
BME_10
Male
Lecturer
C
BME_11
Male
Assistant professor
C
BME_12
Male
PhD student
D
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
support from the family and
colleagues are also
essential for woman
scientists.
36-55
She thinks that it would be
useful to encourage girls at
elementary and secondary
schools to choose scientific
careers and convince them
that it is a real opportunity
for them. In general, girls
think that research goes
hand in hand with strong
competition, which is less
desirable for them.
Up to
In his opinion, leading
35
positions are equally
accessible for women and
men. Expectations against
women and men are the
same at work, while women
have necessarily more
duties and obligations in the
family.
Up to 35 He is satisfied with his
current position, although
he had never planned to
become a researcher. He
has got two children and
runs his own engineering
business as well but he has
developed the right balance
between family and work.
Up to 35 He is doing his PhD studies
with an industrial
scholarship. This possibility
gives him the chance to
acquire the practical routine
and the necessary
theoretical knowledge of the
same field. Other PhD
students are in a difficult
situation, because the
governmental fund is not
enough for the family
budget.
48
BME_13
Female
PhD student
D
BME_14
Male
Assistant professor
C
BME_15
Male
Associate professor
B
BME_16
Male
Professor
A
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
Up to 35 She is a bit uncertain of her
further plans after getting
her doctorate, because
working in the business
sphere means a better
financed background. She
believes that there is an
educational problem in
Hungary: there is a deficit of
knowledge for the younger
generation regarding
natural sciences.
Up to 35 He says that the hardest
thing in architecture is that
you always have to make
important decisions very
quickly where females are
not too successful. Even
though there should be a lot
of talented females in this
profession since they are
most handy and precise
which is indispensable to
this profession.
36-55
He thinks the measure of
success for a university
professor is being the head
of department. It gives you
respect and appreciation.
After that you should go in
for publications, sciences
etc.
Over 55
He thinks that the reason of
women’s inequality is first of
all due to the patriarchal
society, which has not
changed during the years.
He does not see differences
between women and men,
especially in hard-working,
intelligence etc. There are
differences only between
two given persons but not
by gender.
He knows that the current
situation is not satisfying
and a change is
indispensable.
49
6.1. Career path
According to the interviews, the following career path types might be traced at the university:
1. Careers successful in all intents and purposes, scientific degrees and promotions,
advancement coming in due time. The balance between publications, tenders and tutorial
activity is satisfactory. Stable family background. It is independent from gender, but
naturally more men belong to this category than women simply because there are more
men among tutors than women.
2. Although scientific degrees are attained in due time, career advancement is slower or
hindered. We recognized two types of this category:
3. The tutor is satisfied with the level he or she could reach and is not interested in further
advancement. It is independent from gender.
4. The tutor intends to get further in the hierarchy, but they simply runs into a wall, and does
not even have an idea whom to turn to. (In the chapter concerning case studies this
question is discussed in detail.) This type is represented by the group of young tutors under
35 – both men and women.
5. This type is made up of those who do not aspire either to executive positions or scientific
honours, but have good industrial connections or an own company where they are able to
realize achievements. We could find only men in this category.
6.2. Present Position
The majority of the sixteen interviewees are satisfied with their present position. We selected our
interviewees in a way that ensured they represented all statuses, age groups and sexes. Some of
the heads of department have already been reelected; one of them was elected as tutor of the year
and another as honorary student. (Both of them were men.)
The successful never fail to add that besides hard work some chance was necessary for their
success. (There is no luck without work, but someone might have worked more than me,
nevertheless he won’t come off well. BME_16). So both luck and hard work are crucial. In addition
they find supporters, mentors and language knowledge very important. Some of them mostly write
in foreign languages, since it is essential to get into the scientific circles and to receive invitations
to conferences.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
50
One of the female associate professors satisfied with her career answered that she had reached
all that she had wanted and her further advancement solely depended on her will: “If a women
wants something, today she is able to do it. If I had wanted to reach any higher ranks, I could have
done it. But I don’t want to be promoted to a university professor in order to improve the image of
the university by showing off another woman at that level, even though I can not undertake this
task, because I have a family that is at least as important for me as my career. I think women
preferring their careers to family can make their aims come true, and those who consider work and
family equally important can reach a level both in their work and families that they want.” (BME_5)
6.3. Access to sources
Nearly everybody complained of low salaries. Some of the interviewees mentioned it as a reason
of the large number of researchers’ quitting. One of the professors explained that this is not a
problem in itself, since “someone who enters employment in the industry with good basic training
must be able to think and will likely be successful. I don’t like people living only for teaching. I do
not believe that tutors without research or organization activity can have justification for existence
at a university. Tutoring, research, fundraising. At least two of these should be pursued. These
don’t have to represent the same significance, but one of them is not enough.” (BME_16)
One of the young female lecturers just about to attain a PhD degree is uncertain of her future: “I
have my future years on the brain a lot. To tell you the truth, the Faculty is in a really bad financial
situation and the salary they are able to offer is horribly low. Sometimes I would like to stay but
sometimes I would like to go.”
The opinion of a successful associate professor is much the same: “I do not get any kind of
support from my workplace, I have to raise everything somehow on my own. I have never enjoyed
professional support; I have never ever had a supervisor since my PhD degree. Never ever has
anyone paved the way for me, so my life has been quite full of struggles. My salary is guaranteed,
but that’s all we have the money for, but this is not only about me, this is the Hungarian reality at
the moment where we have to fight for everything.” (BME_5)
Nearly everybody sees tender competitions as the most important way of gaining the sources
necessary for researches: “I have had OTKA (Hungarian Scientific Research Fund) continuously
since 1993, which is not a bad achievement, as the support has been thoroughly restricted
recently. I got OTKA in 2005 as well, when only few researchers were awarded, and also, I ended
up in an illustrious position. This is a kind of professional achievement I was really happy about. In
this field of sciences there are not greater amounts I could compete for. I participated in two quasi-
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
51
EU tenders, with the team of Professor Zrínyi, and I think this is a real honour that I might be a
member of such research groups.” (BME_6)
“I can publish if I work, and I can work if I have the money for that, and I have the money, if I
compete. Since we keep submitting tender applications, thanks God we have enough money, so it
does not mean a problem” – answered one of the female associate professors adding that
“Moreover, since we have been participating EU tenders, we have been a good point in all the
tenders, because you can find WOMEN in capitals in the Gender Issues part.” She is also proud of
the fact that three out of four project leaders are women in her former department. (BME_5)
“Position alone does not ensure the appropriate financial sources. You can only gain the financial
sources you need, if you scrape it out for yourself. It is extremely hard to get the money for the
researches. You must apply for tenders; this is the only way to get sources. I enjoy holding lectures
abroad and achieving scientific results. What I like the least is the constant hunt for money.
Especially in the case of the money that might be spent on education, because tender sources are
not allowed to be spent on educational aims. In order to catch up with the state-of-the-art level you
must beg for donations. 30% of my daily work routine consists of searching for sources for
education” – declared a female professor, head of department. (BME_8)
6.4. Publications
Generally all the interviewees mentioned that their publications are the results of teamwork, which
means co-authorship. They also added that besides the number of publications there are other
indicators of scientific achievement, such as coursebook writing, conference organizing, industrial
application, fund raising, and these activities are expected from every tutor and researcher.
(BME_16)
“Publication is a very good indicator that tells a lot about a researcher. Another possible indicator
similar to this is the number of patents. There are some research groups that do not publish a lot of
studies, but they have a contract with some (industrial) companies, and they do not publish their
results because they defend their achievements with patents. On the other hand you don’t have to
be a tutor to be well known in professional circles, it is not necessary either for relationships or for
other reasons. Participating on conferences and publishing is more important than that.” (BME_4)
“We are very successful in publishing. I am very proud of a prize we received last year, which we
won for the best study published in an international quarterly.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
52
Besides
the
previously
mentioned
spin-off
company
prizes
also
represent
scientific
acknowledgement. Few years ago I won an American prize in Silicon Valley, which is annually
given to the best researcher and research group in this field.
Yes, the number of publications is an appropriate indicator for measuring scientific achievement.”
(BME_8)
There was a female lecturer who emphasized that “publication is a kind of measure. But you
should be very cautious with it; in particular the number of publications in itself can be deceptive.
The quality of the publications – among a lot of other things – is more important. Someone might
publish fewer articles, but might put very good questions and give great ideas to others, which can
also be most useful. Not to mention that setting off the young researchers to the right direction is at
least as useful as publishing, however, hardly can be measured.” (BME_9)
6.5. Life work balance
When speaking about private life nearly everybody mentioned the importance of family. The
women emphasized those who and the ways they helped them so that they could successfully
advance in their careers while giving birth to and bringing up their children. On the other hand the
men stressed the sacrifice of their wives in favour of their families. Nearly everybody marked it as a
conflict source that he or she felt his/her family to be neglected because of his/her work.
“We have three children and six grandchildren, and as we live together it is quite an important
thing. We live in three neighbouring houses, but practically all the six grandchildren are around us
all day. My companion is a chemical engineer, we attended school together. He worked a lot in the
country, so he could not help too much with the children, so the reason why I could pursue a so
called scientific career was his mother’s help. My mother-in-law had always been available since
the birth of the children and helped a lot. I never had to stay at home with the children when they
were ill and could not go to the nursery school, because then their grandmother took care of them.
You can’t manage it without the help of the family, this is an important point. You can not execute
an experiment if you can be there only every other day, or you launch it but then do not appear for
two weeks. Of course, I often felt that I spend too little time with the children, but women tend to
feel that they have too little time even if they know that their lives are balanced. The way I tried to
solve this problem was the following: I worked a lot from September to June at the office and at the
university to progress in my work, and parallel I tried to hold on at home, especially at the
weekends. In summer I always spent two entire months with my children at Lake Balaton. When it
was necessary I went on a maternity leave, after that, when I had a lot of days off I was away on
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
53
holiday. Actually summer functioned as the time for regeneration. … I can only recommend every
woman not to give birth to her children where she wants to build a career. When I already worked
here, 7 or 8 years ago, it didn’t mean a problem to anyone that I gave birth to my third child. During
those seven years I had spent here before they could make sure that they might count on me and I
was reliable, so my third child was born here.” (BME_5)
”I have two sons, one of them is 15 the other one is 12. I am married, but I live separated. My
husband worked at home – in our atelier – but his family presence was minimal. I must play double
mill with my work and family tasks, even though the grandparents have always helped a lot, which
is a great advantage, they substituted my husband, practically. When I started my job at the
university, my first son was only one or two weeks old, and I ran into the university to hold my
lectures between two breastfeedings, and in the meantime my father looked after the baby. I am a
dutiful and workaholic type of employee, so I would surely try to fulfill the work and family
responsibilities at the same time and counterpoise between them. If I were not able to manage it, I
would opt for the family.” (BME_3)
“If there is a reason to feel remorseful for neglecting my family it is the because of the long trips
abroad. For example, my second child was born when I was in Germany with the Humboldt
Fellowship, and I had to leave my family behind. My wife had to make serious sacrifices that time,
however she was the head of the production department of a big pharmaceutical factory. Although
we could solve the situation she was at a disadvantage.” (BME_16)
“I looked after the children, played with them, I had some household tasks, but most of the tasks
were carried out by my wife. Sometimes I felt I should spend more time with my family and the
children, and from time to time I thought it was my work that kept me from doing so, but now I think
I simply scheduled my time badly.” (BME_2)
Regarding life-work balance only few interviewees connected other fields than family. One of the
senior professors was an exception: “I think people have the time for those activities they want to.
Besides my work I could manage to be with my family, go swimming, read books, meet friends etc.
Basically I am hedonistic. The only thing that suffered some injuries midst my work activities was
the theatre; I could keep all the other habits. If you have a lot of work that is another reason to do
different things from work so that you would not become one-sided.”
6.6. Critical areas
Almost everybody complained of the fact that more lecturers fall on one room than it was supposed
to when the rooms were planned, which causes great congestion, and relatively too many
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
54
researchers stay in the rooms at the same time, however there are some fields of sciences – for
example mathematics – where the nature of the work allows the researcher to work at home or in
the library.
“There is a great density in the department; there are four of us in two interconnected lofts while
there are always some consultations going on downstairs, and students keep coming and going.
Sometimes it is fun, but I can not work there undisturbed, so I mainly do my library and educational
tasks there. At home we have a relatively big, 50-square metre office, where I work alone at
present. The department is not well equipped with machinery, two of us use one PC, and when
somebody is using it when I enter, we have to bargain on time-sharing.
That’s why I always take my laptop with me.” (BME_3)
Most of the colleagues are satisfied with the university infrastructure; nevertheless some basic
deficiencies got publicity. For example: “What extremely sets us back – say, it is a special problem
of the chemical engineers – that there are a lot of online databases and search programs that help
us find literature. It would be very important to be able to do even our daily work tasks. When you
are about to launch a new research or even start a new direction you need a week long hunt for
literature, but we have restricted access to it since it costs a lot of money. For example I can only
search for literature on my superior’s PC, but he is there in the library all day. I can either bundle
him off for a few hours or stay in the laboratory late at night, but even then I can only manage to do
it if there are no other researchers logged in the system from the department, as not more than
one or two people can use the system at the same time. These are special databases and search
programs for chemical engineers which are either subscribed by the department or together with
ELTE or other universities due to their enormous fees. This is a serious problem, because it might
happen that I can only check an important thing in a week.” (BME_4)
The following also concerned the question of infrastructure: “There are still deficiencies in this field
in the department, however it is not an invincible situation, since we keep trying to overcome such
problems. For example if we are lacking some equipment we are bound to use a simplified method
for what could be measured or proved in a more elegant way at a Western-European university. It
has its advantages as well, as it develops problem solving skills, but on the other hand it is
depressing to see that we do not have the money for new equipment or sometimes for
chemicals… I feel these deficiencies more considerably than others, because I had the opportunity
to spend half a year at a Swedish university and another half a year at the Finnish Institute of
Biotechnology. A Swedish laboratory is chalk and cheese compared to a Hungarian one, but we
must make do with what we have.” (BMW_13)
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
55
A female colleague from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering draws the attention to the following:
“I would only quit this job if I gave birth to children, since this job is not a health insurance.
Especially the vent hood systems make it horrible. I would not even conceive under such
circumstances. My parents are worried, but they can see the problem clearly.” (BME_4)
In some cases a co-worker can not even get a normal desk: “when I was appointed as a
department engineer at the university, they could not provide me a place to work. I had to work in a
room like a small practice room where lectures were held for 15 students and there were also
computers and I had to sit in the corner at a small desk. I won some money on a competition so I
could buy myself a computer, but for example for one of the lecturers it was a problem that I
disturbed the lessons by making phone calls, so he demanded that I did not make or receive calls,
but that of course meant that I could not arrange my duties, but there was no other solution. Then
we solved the problem finally, but that room has just been taken away, so I won’t have a place to
sit there again. So unfortunately it is not good to work at the university… and it is much more
efficient and tranquil to work at home.” (BME_7)
Somebody mentioned the university accounting of tender money among the crucial points:
“Settlement of accounts is a hard issue and very slow as well. You must be a financial expert, too,
if you want to get your money according to your expectations. It is a real problem that we,
researchers have to deal with financial affairs – both in the case of national, international and EU
projects. There has been an example for the fact that an amount transferred to the account of the
university only appeared on the account of the department a year later.” (BME_10)
It is also one of the crucial areas and is the weak point of the university strategy that it has an
ageing educational staff. On the other hand a professor mentioned that he could experience strong
reservations against not only the women but against the young as well. “I became a professor at
the age of 40, and I remained the youngest professor at the university for 6 years. Well, this is a
kind of cultural scandal, and the situation is not much better at present. We stick to the good old
beaten track of age-based advancement, because that is for sure.” (BME_16)
“I noticed at BME – not to mention names – that the university is gradually dying out, there are the
old professors, then the PhD students, and a large empty space in-between” – told another
representative of the older generations. But there is no guarantee for PhD students to get a place
at the university after graduation. “I often think of staying at the university after graduation in the
long run, I really fancy the atmosphere here and I like lecturing as well, if I have the opportunity. At
present university statuses are ceased one after the other, and it augurs ill for young scientists.
Considering this and the fact that it is harder to educate without industrial experience, I would like
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
56
to spend 5 or 10 years at an industrial company after graduation. If it is still a real option after all, I
would gladly return to the university either to hold lectures or to do research. But without such
experiences I feel that I should preach what I have never tried.” (BME_13)
It is also one of the crucial areas that the professors get more and more busy and have less and
less time for the rising generation. Although most of the interviewees mentioned at least one
mentor in their lives, there were some who – independently from gender – recalled contradictory
experiences. E. g.: “I know several people who quit research for financial reasons. I have a female
colleague in the department, who would have been at least as talented as I was, but she did not
have such a good mentor as I had. In the field she dealt with, the colleagues were jealous of each
others’ success, and her direct superior pushed her back, that’s why she could build up a career.
Her superior – a woman as well – not only refused to support her, but discouraged her from doing
research (she refused her PhD topic, and did not back her up). It was clearly because of
professional jealousy. No, it is absolutely not typical of the department that a woman can build her
career here, I was lucky because of my mentor and my family.” (BME_8)
6.7. Career path
The situation of women also belongs to the crucial questions at the university. The former rector of
the university had statistics compiled on the situation of the women at the university during his
rectorate. It was not the willingness for action or change that drove him but the consideration that
all the universities in the West have such statistical statements, but not in Hungary.
The statistics clearly stated that while the rate of female and male students is balanced at some
faculties, at other faculties men are overrepresented. The same tendency prevails among the
university staff.
The statement names the male-centric society as the main reason of that. It makes no difference
between male and female diligence, talent or intelligence. There are only differences between two
given persons, but not between genders.
It finally admits that the situation is not satisfactory and a change is necessary. As a solution it
mentions developing proper and well-functioning scholarship policy and supporting talented female
students.
However, most of the female lecturers would put it the other way around: “I am sure that the
scientific achievement of men and women is appreciated in a different way. A man is naturally
taken more seriously, he represents an other kind of credibility, things are more convincing when
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
57
told by a men, we are still considered as ‘chicks’, anyway. Even there is some scepticism in the
background towards those women who present ambitious scientific plans. According to my
experiences only a small proportion of the women in the spotlight can answer this challenge in a
natural way, most of them are struggling with some kind of overcompensation: some of them
overemphasize their womanliness, while others hold their ground with masculine firmness. I might
have unintendedly chosen city-planning, because this is a feminized profession within architecture,
it demands communication, contact building and empathy. That’s why men are a little bit reserved
against it.” She thinks men and women can equally wish to get into executive positions, as it is a
question of habit: “The deputy of the head of department in out department is a woman, who is
much younger than me. She is really capable of leading, she has such ambitions, and I guess she
will have the opportunity as well. At the Faculty of Architecture it is perceivable in other
departments as well that the young generation is coming up. ” (BME_3)
The opinions concerning women’s career building in sciences are diverse: “I do not know anything,
and I do not have any experience about such things as the possible effects and influence of male
prejudices against women on the situation of women (access to research opportunities,
advancement opportunities). It must be different from field to field in sciences. There are
masculine, combatant things, fights at all levels. But I do not know its consequences in particular,
and I have no idea about it. But from time to time there are some trifles… Just a historical example:
the solution of equations around the 15th and 16th century – which was the time when the solution
formula of cubic equations was discovered – went like a real fight, a duel. One challenged the
other, which team can solve more equations, and the loser had top pay for the whole winning side.
These were pitched battles and the loser might have lost the opportunity to teach at the university.
Such motives still exist today from a point of view, and in my opinion it does not fit women. On the
other hand in mathematics you must show some results and then it is transparent what you are up
to and it does not matter what motives you had. I do not know to what extent women are
disadvantaged in the different fields of sciences in Hungary. I do not reckon it a disadvantageous
situation when a woman has a family and has to spend more time with it. It also depends on the
cultural environment. It is clearly disadvantageous concerning her scientific career, but
independently from that there is another side of the question when she suffers a disadvantage
because of being a woman.” (BME_2)
Someone worded it in an ironic way: “Regarding laboratory work they like women, as some
cleaning and washing also has to be done, and perhaps we can keep order and take care of such
things better than men, and this must be done as well. On the other hand there are no great
differences during our PhD studies, as it is not typical of women to go on a maternity leave in that
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
58
period. And only a small proportion of the men want to stay here, because this salary is not enough
to support a family.” (BME_4)
The tutors expressed diverse opinions concerning the difficulties women have to face if they are
eager to become leaders. One of the opinion groups can be described as “women are not that
good at leading”. Although they agree that it is not because of their intellectual capacity or
temperamental properties, but because of family roles. “I think women have such great – not only
exact but mental – restraints, which prevents them from a 100% performance in certain situations. I
move in a quite a big latitude and I receive significant background help from the grandparents, but
in spite of these I can’t afford working over the clock for a long time. Parents can not be substituted
in all the situations, and in a normal case a parent should want to avoid all the family
responsibilities. The mental freedom that is necessary to be able to concentrate solely on the work
can not be achieved by a woman (with a family) on the long run.” However, the same interviewee
added that in her opinion women are not that motivated to gain executive positions in large
numbers, and this also applies to her. “Most of my colleagues share this view: they are satisfied
with having their own competencies, within which they can make decisions. It is important to be
able to grasp the problems within my own elbow-room but I do not want to grasp, direct or
supervise the elbow-rooms of others. Masculine women are better and more rational at organizing
things, and this might apply to their lives as well.” (BME_3) A young male assistant professor
affirms the same: “Women are more down-to earth than men, they are not daydreaming about
becoming a leading and then doing this and that. They might be able to judge the dangers of being
in a leading position that’s why they do not apply for it.” (BME_10)
Some of the female lecturers think that women are not so willing to reach executive positions as
men: “I have the feeling that women are not so ambitious concerning leading positions. It is hard to
tell. (BME_9)” Actually, the majority of the male interviewees denied aspiring for an executive
position, too. The only question is that if it is so, why we can find much more men in leading
positions than women.
About the question of women gaining executive positions, one of the male lecturers explained: “In
my opinion you have much more opportunities to make your plans come true as a leader. If you
have a really good idea, you have better chances to achieve something spectacular. What I do not
like in it, or what would not attract is the struggle it provokes, the human conflicts, and the official
formalities you can not escape. There must be differences in the question whether these positions
are equally accessible for women or not, this is strongly influenced by culture. How people live the
advantages of being in a leading position, it certainly shows gender differences. The Hungarian
society is a bit archaic in this respect, and if I may put it so, it is male dominated. I think this should
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
59
not prevail at the university, and there are more and more examples from business life that women
can manage giant organizations as well, and in a different way, but they are able to direct them.”
(BME_2)
Only few of them can see a solution: “I think gender equality is a hopeless case. While the family is
mainly associated to women – and this is something that can not be changed, it is encoded into us
– it will remain a problem. When I start to deal with a question that interests me a lot, I am often
unable to get totally lost in it, because I know I will have to stand up and finish it. There will always
be family tasks which follow not my own but the rhythm of the family. Maybe with a full backup from
the husband (which is quite rare), but only without children and a family. I do not think any central
measures could help this problem. The nice thing in scientific research is that it is not bound to
time, on the other hand in many cases we are not allowed to work when we feel like working and
have the inspiration.” (BME_3)
“Home-work and flexitime work might be a great help for researchers. I have enjoyed the benefits
of it all my life. I have never had to bear such burdens. When I wanted to go, my colleagues and
parents helped me a lot. I was lucky with my colleagues, my parents and flexitime as well. All the
three are needed if a woman wants to make a career. Today life and research work is much easier
since we have PCs and internet access; it makes it much easier for a woman to build her career.
(BME_8)
Most of the respondents refused the introduction of a quota system or at least doubted its
efficiency: “The problem with political provisions is that they always have their kickbacks, after that
the advancement of the worthy would be questioned as well. It would be much more important to
encourage the girls at elementary and secondary schools somehow.” (BME_9) But we found
researchers who would support the quota system, and consider it as a useful tool for promoting
women so that they could catch up with men. E. g.: “Women and men face an absolutely different
situation in sciences. I think men have much better chances than women… It is hard to find an
institutional answer to promote gender equality. However those quotas prescribed in other fields
for women eventually help them. I often travel to Brussels to evaluate EU tenders, and there are
strict rules ensuring that a given percentage of the members of evaluating committees are women.
I must admit that these women are always able to perform these tasks. We might be able to find
men who are more competent, but those women are competent, too. So it does not mean that
fewer capable women get into these committees because women must be represented. But for
those quotas much fewer women would have the chance to manifest themselves.
I think the application of these quotas is appropriate, even though it disturbs some of the women.
They say, those who are really good, can make it without the quotas. But it is not so simple. If a
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
60
woman does not get the necessary support from her workplace and family in the crucial periods,
she finds herself in a more difficult situation.” (BME_8)
Somebody would begin with the reform of the approaches and stereotypes of primary education:
“In order to promote gender equality the most important factor would be to encourage girls at
elementary schools, and reinforce them that this is a realistic career opportunity. That is the place
where a girl’s attitudes are formed, and where their future expectations are decided. As far as I can
see, girls do not consider scientific careers seriously, because they think that it is characterized by
fierce competition that girls do not prefer. They should be encouraged, because they are afraid of
they would not be up to it.” (BME_9)
But fortunately young female PhD students can find female role models among successful
lecturers: “I always have my supervisor on my mind, I would like to follow her example. She has a
family, she can find time for her private life, and besides she is most dynamic, energetic and active.
But I guess there is no recipe for that.” (BME_13)
6.8. Criteria and excellence
“A good scientist is someone a theme can be associated with, something, of which he or she
knows the ins and outs. Also, in a way, that beyond the facts at the level of instincts, very deep
there is an extra, that enables him/her to answer questions which can not be answered simply by
looking at the facts. Who can superbly presume, and able to tell a student – without dealing with
the topic previously – whether it is worth setting off in a direction or not. In science we have the
methods to measure scientific competence and excellence. Basically publications are good
indicators to decide how valuable a scientist’s achievements are.” (BME_2)
Somebody mentioned that preserving interest in the topic is a most important element in a
scientific career, and that it is necessary to keep searching for the new and find the appropriate
questions for that. He told: “I think we must keep the children’s curiosity in a researcher.” (BME_5)
“As for me, the good scientist is able to build up something in a consistent way within his/her logic
with certain passion and belief. In my opinion it is important to be able to present it, write it down,
and his/her appearance and interpretation also matter.” (BME_3)
“In evaluating competence and value there must be unfair decisions as well, but I did not mean any
specific examples where it can be grabbed. For example I do not think that gender questions can
influence a nomination for the head of department position. Or that this would play a more
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
61
important role than other aspects in a competition between a male and female applicant with
significant scientific background. In the competition of two male candidates it is also possible that
the less worthy gets the position thanks to a lot of other considerations.” (BME_2)
“What is a good researcher like? One of the most important things is that he or she could preserve
his/her motivation, because if it is lost… I think people get bored after a period, especially in the
academic sphere: he/she can not do this, can not do that, he/she is going to retire soon… He/she
should have well-grounded ideas so that these could be realized at least to some extent. He/she
should be a good leader, who is able to direct his/her team, should deal with the topic regularly,
and not just scribble something on a piece of paper and check the progress once a month. He/she
should follow what is going on in his/her field, should know all the literature and new achievements
that are available concerning his/her theme, and should be able to change direction if it seems to
have got stuck. The best indicator of true success is when his/her name is well known in his/her
field.” (BME_4)
“In my opinion the outstanding researcher is necessarily a workaholic.
In our field there is no place for individual researchers. The tasks are of such a great volume that
our work is impossible without the cooperation of several people. That means all success is
achieved commonly. …If you want to be an excellent researcher, you must be enduring. You must
speak languages, you must be able to write in style. This is a very important aspect and a lot of
people are not aware of it. In technological sciences, business application is an important
manifestation of scientific success. I regard it as a success that we could found a company that
develops instruments used by the leading electric corporations of the world. So the measure of
success for me is creating something that finds its way to business application.” (BME_8)
Another opinion states that “the most important thing is curiosity. To have something that interests
him/her a lot. And he/she should be liable to go after it. You mustn’t be too lazy. You must have an
internal driving force to become an excellent researcher, that makes the theme important for
him/her, and that makes him/her do it without any external pressure, because the researcher’s
activity can not be forced from outside.”
A lot of things might be considered as success. But there is no universal scale to measure it with.
Of course the number of publications count, but a sheer number is not the real thing. A prize is not
an obvious indicator as well, since the prize awarding process goes like this: somebody comes into
the proposer’s mind and gets the prize if nobody objects it ardently. It is not only the researcher’s
excellence that matters, but there are a lot of other considerations, too. I would say those being
awarded scientific prizes are good enough, but not everybody who is good enough gets a prize.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
62
Of course unfair things happen. Not everybody who would deserve to get prizes, because there
are so many worthy people. This happens more often in sciences than the opposite, when an
absolutely unworthy person gets a prize. (BME_9)
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
63
7. Case studies
BME_1 and BME_6
We chose the parallel and dual career building of a married couple as our first two case studies.
Both of them are lecturers at BME.
The husband (BME_1, born in 1948) – graduated from Eötvös Lóránd Science University (ELTE)
in 1971 – is a mathematician. He started his lecturing career there, where he first worked part time,
then between 1984 and 1990 in full time, and in the meanwhile he had a full time work at the
Research Institute for Telecommunications from 1971 to 1984. Ha has been working at BME since
1990, where he became Head of department in 1997.
He has had a balanced career path without serious setbacks. He was not even thirty when he got
a PhD degree, and he managed to attain the highest possible scientific degree of the Academy at
the age of 36: he became a Doctor of Mathematical Sciences.
He has wanted to deal with mathematics since elementary school. At secondary school
mathematics competitions and mathematical journals played an important role in his life. He had
some decisive lecturers, but they rather influenced him only in the choice of topics. His mentality
brought from the parental house, his language knowledge and particularly his good lecturers at the
university meant a great help for him.
One of his chief results is the first Springer-monography on the theory of matroid and its
technological applications, and he discovered, together with a Japanese colleague, that there are
two kinds of current tension symmetry in electric networks theory. He was awarded his first prize
as a student, and he has received plenty of Hungarian and international recognitions since then.
The wife (BME_6, born in 1948) graduated from the the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at BME,
Branch of Organic and Biological Chemical Industry, sub-branch Industry of Plastics in 1971. After
graduating she worked as a teaching assistant at the Department of Organic Chemical Technology
at BME with a state scholarship for two years, than as a lecturer for six years, then as an assistant
professor between 1979 and 1994, and as an associate professor until 1998, and as a professor
since then. She was the vice dean responsible for education at the Faculty of Chemical
Engineering.
She defended her Doctor of Technology thesis in 1978, then her PhD thesis in 1990, and
habilitated in 1997 at BME. Her career building seems to be slow compared to her husband’s, but
64
the differences have been levelled off by now. She had a lot of tasks during her career which were
not closely connected to her professional work and it delayed her professional advancement. Their
lives linked up in 1983 when they got married. Their children were born in 1984 and in 1986. It is
peculiar in her career that it gathered speed after the births of the children. She wrote and
defended her PhD thesis thanks to the encouragement and with the full support of her husband.
She proclaims: “When I was on maternity leave, I could only manage to finish my PhD, on which I
worked when my husband took the children out for a walk. I had my materials from earlier times,
this is a science of experiments, and this is the only possible way, you can not make experiments
at home in the kitchen, so I had my experiment reports, and I had to do it over an article and a
thesis. When both the children are small you can only pursue any scientific work with some help.
Looking back I regret not spending more time with them at home. I decided well, because my work
when I came in, the lecturing here and the children at home, so I could not have managed to do
continuous thesis and study writing otherwise. So the support of my husband was very important,
because I could have rearranged all the wardrobes at home, tidy up the flat before returning to
work, but he told me that I had better write my PhD thesis and he was absolutely right. Well, at
such times my family was overshadowed, and it happens from time to time for example when I
have a deadline, I tell all right guys eat what you can find at home… and then I sit down in front of
the computer and work.”
The elementary and secondary school Chemistry teachers strongly influenced the career decisions
of the wife. She has about 60 scientific publications that evoked a sufficient scientific response
looking at the citations. The publication opportunities are quite narrow in her field. The new
potential fields of application of fabrics chemistry are in demand which is an all European
phenomenon.
The professor summarized the question of family and work balance this way: “I am married with
two children; both of them are university students, arts students. My wife is a university professor,
and a vice dean responsible for education, which is really time consuming. It entails that she brings
her problems home, we discuss them but it is not at the expense of the household or our family
life. Fortunately household appliances make our lives easier, she only cooks at the weekend. The
children’s need for time spent together is less and less, although we spent a lot of time together
when they were younger, and it does not rest with us today. Reconciling family and work
responsibilities is not that complicated, and I do not think it would badly influence our work, but
obviously when the children are ill for example, it is normal that we think of them more often during
the day.”
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
65
6
“Every time I got a visiting lecturer’s assignment abroad the family came with us, and their
presence did not affect my work. There are differences between the American and the WesternEuropean habits, as it is quite natural in America that the wife has a job as well, while in Germany
the traditional Hausfrau model survives. When we were in America my wife could continue her
research there, also, once she was there as the official leader of an American research project at
the same time as me. The children were 8 and 10 years old then and they attended school there.
This did not bring a change in the family life, only the structure changed a bit.
The wife told about the same thing: “We have two children who are university students. My
husband is a university professor, head of department. I receive a lot of help from him; we bring up
the children together. I can only recommend everyone to stay at home with the children even for 3
years. I do the cooking at the weekends, but then I cook for the whole week, in order to avoid
cooking on weekdays. There are some parts of scientific activity that might be pursued at home, so
I work at home when it is possible. As a vice dean I had such activities regarding administration
and deadline duties. It is easier to write articles and studies at home as well.”
So as a summary we can draw the conclusion that despite the fact that there is no central
university policy for supporting the scientific careers of married couples, practically they more or
less managed to find the right balance between career and family thanks to flexitime work, and
they could both become honoured members of the university community.
BME_7
Our next case study is about a young scientist (born in 1972), who is well known in professional
circles, has significant achievements, but in spite of all these things she has been drifting at the
university, she has not received a position due to her scientific degree, and she has not been given
encouragement for her university career after coming back from a maternity leave.
Primarily she applied for the Faculty of Architecture of BME, but was admitted for the Faculty of
Civil Engineering in 1990. She graduated as a civil engineer (structural engineering branch). She
came to like geology, and dealing with petrology brought her closer to architecture and historical
buildings. She prepared her thesis at the University of Karlsruhe, Department of Minerology, but
she handed it in in Budapest. After her successful thesis work (she received a German certificate
of merit), the cooperation with the German partner continued. She was a full time PhD student at
the Engineering Geology Division of BME between 1995 and 1998. During her PhD studies she
had several stays of some months in Karlsruhe, so she partly performed her research there. In the
meanwhile she graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering as a specialist in the protection of
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
66
6
historical buildings gaining her second diploma. After three years of being a PhD student she
hoped to stay at the Engineering Geology Division of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, but there
were no empty stauses there that time and she was told that this profession was not for women. In
this uncertain situation she received an offer from the Faculty of Architecture. According to the then
current plans she could have worked in the Laboratory of Historical Buildings just about to be
established. But these plans did not come true, so she ended up in the Laboratory of Thermal
Physics as a department engineer. She worked here as an engineer from 1998 and defended her
PhD thesis summa cum laude in 2002 and attained the PhD degree. Now she is a research
assistant here. By 1st January 2007 the Laboratory of Thermal Physics was affiliated to the
Department of Building Energetics and Building Services of the Faculty of Architecture. She
returned from maternity leave 1st September 2006, and she does not know yet where she can
work physically or where her desk will be.
With a PhD degree she should be assigned to assistant professor, but her present position is still
research assistant with a three-year-term definite contract of employment. She has won on the
OTKA Postdoctoral research proposals, which means she had to go on an unpaid holiday leave
due to the regulatory system otherwise she could not have received the OTKA support. She went
on a maternity leave in this situation and came back to the university after that. The end terminus
of her definite contract is 31st December 2008, and she has no idea about her future status.
She had supervisors and mentors at both faculties who gave her a lot of professional support. Her
professor in Karlsruhe also supported her. When she became a department engineer she did not
even have a desk or a PC. She was given a small desk in one of the lecture halls but it was
impossible to work undisturbed because of the lessons. She chalked up a PC, a xerox machine, a
digital camera and other devices from money won on competitions. Also she managed to build a
furnace. She does not know the future of that valuable furnace after the termination of the
Laboratory of Thermal Physics.
She has quite a lot of publications. Their number decreased a bit after the birth of her daughter, but
she hopes that it is only temporary. Her area of speciality is the examination of rocks at high
temperature and in fire especially in consideration of rocks of historical buildings. Her topic is in the
point of intersection of several science areas; it is related to engineering, geology and material
science. This variegation is a kind of obstacle in the way of publishing, because none of the
science areas involved emerge in their clear states. There are few recognized Hungarian journals,
and it takes a lot of time to get into an international journal.
Her father is a chemical engineer, her mother works in foreign trade. They had always supported
her in her studies, and foreign study trips. Her husband also tolerates her work, even the
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
67
6
paperwork that often reaches far into the night at home. She deems family support very important.
She has a one-and-a-half year old daughter and her mother helps her a lot.
BME_16
The next case study is about a professor who has reached practically everything that a scientist
and a university professor can. He was a head of department, an associate professor, a dean and
was elected as rector for two cycles and is the member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He
remained an active researcher while building his university career – which was not a conscious
process as he states – and he tried himself in several areas of science. He has three different
research fields: geodesy, photogrammetry and informatics. He has been searching for new
challenges all his life and he was happy to fling himself into them.
He chose engineering under the influence of his father. He was excellent at maths during his
grammar school years, so university admission did not mean a problem for him. He received
invitations as an undergraduate student from several departments, but he only became an
assistant lecturer after a one-year professional practice period in the former East-Germany. He
finished his PhD thesis four years later, so he got his degree in 1967. The topic of his PhD thesis
was geodesical measurement. He became a Doctor of Sciences at the age of 38, a university
professor when he was 40 and the member of the HAS at the age of 50.
He considers his associate professor period as the best time of his life, because he then occupied
a position in the hierarchy that was high enough to have influence on the things he did, but was
free enough of official obligations. (By the way, we must add that it seems to prove what most of
the associate professors answered independently of gender, namely that they do not wish a higher
position, and they only want to teach, do research and win tenders undisturbed.)
It once happened to him, when he was writing his PhD thesis at a very young age, that a much
elder colleague ran up to him from another department and told him to accept that the topic in
question belonged to him. That man did not even have a publication concerning that topic. He
remembers having very good bosses, he never felt as if he had been bottlenecked. But he added:
“I wouldn’t say that my colleagues were happy about everything I did, or did not do, but these
weren’t decisive cases.”
His accomplishments have been awarded with several prizes, honours and fellowships. He
published plenty of articles in Hungarian and in international professional journals. Besides, he has
participated in several course-book writing projects, and has published in Hungarian and
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
68
6
international conference issues. He has two grown-up children; his wife is a woman holding
several degrees and three language exam certificates.
8. Suggestions for policies at the university
It would be necessary to work out a specified action program within the Equality Plan formed in
accordance with the Act of CXXV of 2003 for promoting gender equality at the university.
Committees of Equality should be established at all the faculties and at university level, which
would elaborate the gender equality plan of the faculties and of the university. These should cover
the issues of work conditions, salaries, career advancement, training, childbirth and child rearing
allowances. To help monitoring, annual collection of statistical data should be prescribed with the
same indicators, and it would be useful to mandate independent experts to do the annual
monitoring of the collected data, and derive the necessary policy from the results of the
examination. The results should get university publicity so that the stakeholders could add their
recommendations.
All the above mentioned are necessary due to the fact that the promotion of women’s scientific
career is a serious economical and labour market interest. Securing the equality of chances is
crucial for the operability of the society and the economy; it secures the realization of equal
treatment of men and women in the fields of sciences and education policy harmonized with the
same measures of other policy areas. Women represent such a mentality in leadership that the
society can not go without. In spite of the fact that there are no legal obstacles in the way of the
realization of gender equality, international comparative studies (ENVISE report, ETAN report) and
domestic status reports have revealed that in practice female researchers are underrepresented in
research and development in general and especially in some fields, types of occupation and
sectors and in executive positions. That is why harmonized support of the scientific careers of
women is a preferential objective. As the present statistical reports prove, BME is an example of
the underrepresentation of female researchers and scholars, since the leading bodies of the
university practically lack the presence of women.
Below we list the proposals and recommendations we received concerning the effective ways to
begin with and the measures to be taken.
Including gender aspect in evaluating scientific excellence:
•
Unfold the real situation by taking into account the experiences of all the female
scientists of the organization and realize an evaluating system that includes gender
aspects.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
69
6
•
Conduct a survey on the university experiences of female researchers and lecturers
of the university on a representative sample of employees.
•
Organize discussion groups (with male and female participants) on gender
questions with special regard to the evaluating systems in force.
•
Create an online forum that allows the circulation of opinions within the university
community.
•
Promote gender studies and research in the form of issues and improve their
recognition.
•
Employ internal or external experts on gender issues.
•
Select neutral and objective criteria for evaluating scientific work. The university
should examine the present practice and promote the vindication of these neutral
evaluating criteria and proceedings, which are based on the real merits of the
individual and not on social stereotypes.
•
Promote the idea of alternative work, and make the characteristic “feminine” skills
and properties equal and equally accepted to the characteristic “masculine” skills
and properties in work culture.
•
Take the necessary steps to the acceptance of childbirth and maternity leave, so
that it would not mean a disadvantage in the career advancement of women.
Unfortunately, women with families are considered to be less committed to their
workplaces than their male colleagues.
At BME the men give the majority of the members of the different boards and committees, women
are represented in a small number at the highest levels of management.
•
The university boards and committees should represent the proportion of male and
female scholars at the given faculty. This should be reflected in the nomination
process as well. In case of vacancy it should be obligatory to have both a female
and a male candidate.
At the university it is typical of women to feel isolated and to suffer from lack of self confidence and
recognition in a male dominated environment.
•
Motivate successful female lecturers and researchers to be the mentors of the
younger and to help them through their relationships and networking.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
70
7
•
Emphasize the public appearances and acceptance of professionally recognized
women. Secure that women and their accomplishments could gain greater publicity
at the university.
•
Found prizes for female engineers and scientists and give publicity to the awarding
ceremonies.
There are no strategies developed for promoting life-work balance. It is hard to return to work after
a pause in the career.
•
Support the issue of promoting life-work balance both in the case of men and
women.
•
Urge men to undertake greater responsibilities in their family lives.
•
Map and evaluate the organisational culture typical of the workplaces concerning
work schedules, the length and flexibility of work hours and the timing of meetings.
•
Make employers aware of the difficulties women have to fight after returning from
maternity leave.
•
Set mentors aside women returning to work.
•
Make it possible for women before going on a maternity leave to discuss the ways
the employer can help in returning to work.
•
Offer flexible work conditions for women returning to work.
•
Several mothers with small children suggested that there should be a place for
looking after children, where the children of young mothers on maternity benefit or
grant could get professional care. This might function as a playhouse, where the
children could get professional care for the morning or the afternoon in the territory
of the university, and the mothers could have the possibility to visit their
departments to gain fresh information, or join the research activities.
•
It would also be important for young female researchers to establish a club where
they could meet to share their professional problems, knowledge, tender
experiences or even the different regulations on childcare. So we should start
organizing female networks that are well-tried in the West. This could well promote
the flow of information especially if it is supported by establishing a web surface for
communication.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
71
7
•
It would be useful to make it possible to adjust more and more administrative duties
on the Internet to hasten the pace of university administration and information flow
in order to save time.
On composing the survey some of the respondents drew the attention on problems related to the
topic which are far beyond the jurisdiction of the university. Many of them believe that the most
important step would be to set positive examples from the lowest levels of education, to show clear
and valuable examples of successful female careers in science, invention, planning etc., and the
media should keep this topic on the agenda and present successful female careers. On the other
hand parents should be encouraged more forcefully, not to be in despair if their daughters should
not only play with dolls but assemble things, dismantle and put together their bikes, repair cars, so
they show some talent for construction, and they should help and support these girls in their
orientation toward technological careers in their choice of profession.
The science and technological education needs a change as well: Hungarian experiments
revealed that girls become much braver and much more creative when these subjects are taught
separately for boys and girls than in the presence of boys.
© BME Research/WiTEC Hungary
72
7
9. References
Almanach of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1962–1985, 1991
Blagojević, M., Havelková, H., Sretenova, N., Tripsa, M., Velichová, D. (szerk.): Waste of
talents: turning private struggles into a public issue, Women and Science in the Enwise
countries, European Commission, 2003
European Commission (2006b): She Figures 2006.
http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/pdf/she_figures_2006_en.pdf
Bánfi, Ilona: Az iskolai teljesítményt befolyásoló háttértényezők. Új Pedagógiai Szemle,
1999/6
Báthory, Zoltán: Tanulók, iskolák – különbségek. Nemzeti Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1992
Dobóné Tarai, É.: Tanulói elképzelések az anyag részecske természetével. Középiskolai
Kémiai Lapok, 2004/31/1
Faragó, Péter: Nők a tudományban – A tudós nők helyzete Magyarországon a 20.
században. In: Balogh Margit, S. Nagy Katalin (szerk.): Asszonysorsok a 20. században,
BME Szociológia és Kommunikáció Tanszék és Szociális és Családvédelmi Minisztérium
Nőképviseleti Titkársága, 2000
Dóra, Ilona (szerk.): NGk és férfiak Magyarországon 2001. Központi Statisztikai Hivatal
Szociális és Családügyi Minisztérium Kiadványa, Budapest, 2002
Haraszthy, Ágnes: Equal Opportunities for Women? Women in Science in Hungary. In:
Veronica-Stolte Heiskanen (ed.): Women in Science: Token women or gender equality. Berg,
Oxford, 1993, pp. 193–198.
Hrubos, Ildikó: Férfiak és nők iskolai végzettsége és szakképzettsége. In: Hadas Miklós
(szerk.): Férfiuralom. Replika Kör, Budapest, 1994, pp. 196–208.
Hrubos, Ildikó: ed.: Women in scientific careers. Report on the activities connected with the
question ”Women and Science”. Kutatási jelentés. Budapest, 1999
Illyefalvi, I. Lajos: The breadwinner woman in Budapest. Székesfővárosi Statisztikai Hivatal,
1930
Kovácsné Bakosi, Éva: Jellegzetességek és preferenciák fiúk, lányok játékában. In Óvó- és
tanítóképzés az ezredfordulón. Szerk.: Kovácsné Németh Mária. Debrecen, 2000
KSH (1988): A tudományos kutatók képzettsége, Budapest
KSH (1990): Az 1990. évi népszámlálás adatai. Felsőfokú végzettséggel rendelkezők adatai.
Központi Statisztikai Hivatal, Budapest
KSH (1991): Tudományos kutatás és kísérleti fejlesztés, 1989. Budapest
KSH (1995): 1990. évi 20%-os reprezentatív adatok. A KSH Népszámlálás demográfiai
csoportjának kézirata, Budapest
KSH (1997): Mikrocenzus, 1996. A foglalkoztatottság alakulása 1980–1996. Budapest
KSH (1997): A tudományos kutatók képzettsége, 1995. Budapest
KSH (1998): A tudományos fokozattal rendelkezők anyagi viszonyai, családi háttere és
mobilitása 1997. Budapest
KSH (1999): Termékenységi adatok. Budapest
KSH (2001): 2001. évi népszámlálás adatai. Felsőfokú végzettséggel rendelkezők adatai.
http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/hun/kotetek/30/tables/load1_1.html. 2007. március 27.
KSH (2002a): Nők és Férfiak Magyarországon, 2001. Szociális és Családügyi Minisztérium,
Budapest
73
KSH (2003a): Nők és Férfiak Magyarországon, 2002. Foglalkoztatáspolitikai és Munkaügyi
Minisztérium, Budapest
KSH (2005a): Nők és Férfiak Magyarországon, 2004. Ifjúsági, Családügyi, Szociális és
Esélyegyenlőségi Minisztérium, Budapest
KSH (2006a): Kutatás és fejlesztés, 2005. Budapest
KSH (2006b): Nők és Férfiak Magyarországon, 2005. Szociális és Munkaügyi Minisztérium,
Budapest
Linková, M., Mladenić, D., Papp, E., Saldova, K. (2007): Gender Issues in Science as a
Luxury. Enwise follow-up activities in Central Europe
Lux, Elvira: Egymás ellen harcolnak – egymásért. Fordulópont, 2001/3
Material relations, family background and mobility of persons with academic degrees, 1997
Prepared by: Angelusz, Róbert – Bukodi, Erzsébet and others. KSH, Budapest, 1998
Mikrocensus, 1996. Changes of employment – Central Statistical Office, 1997
National census, 1980. Data of people with higher degree– Central Statistical Office, 1980
Nagy, Beáta: Kirekesztés vagy befogadás? A nemek és generációk jellegzetességei az
információs technológiák használatában és megítélésében
Németh, József: Az Institutum Geometrico Hydrotechnicumtól a Budapesti Műszaki és
Gazdaságtudományi Egyetemig (1782–2002) 4. kiadás, Budapest, 2002
Németh, József: A Műegyetemtől a világhírig. From the BME to World Renown.(Magyar és
angol nyelven), Műegyetemi Kiadó, Budapest, 2005
Newman, Fran: „Itt fontos férfimunka folyik”. Fordulópont, 2001/3
Nguyen, Luu Lan Anh: Nemi sztereotípiák változása a kilencvenes években. In
Hagyományok és irányok. Szerk.: Hunyady, György – Nguyen, Luu Lan Anh. ELTE Eötvös
Kiadó, Budapest, 2001
OM (1937–2005): Statisztikai Tájékoztató. Felsőoktatás. 1958/59–2005/2006. Statistical
Information. Higher education (1959–2005)Budapest, Oktatási Minisztérium
Palasik, Mária: Women at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE) In:
Women Scholars and Institutions. Ed.: Sona Strabanova – Ida Stambuis and Katerina
Mojsejova. Studies in the History of Sciences and Humanities, Research Centre for the
History of Science and Humanities, Prague, 2004. pp. 489-309.
Palasik, Mária: Women in Technical Higher Education and in the Sciences in 20th Century
Hungary. In Hungarian Studies Review, (Canada)Vol. XXIX, IB2 (2002) pp. 25-49.
Palasik, Mária: Women at the Technical University of Budapest in the 20th century. In Wie
Naturlich Ist Geschlecht? Gender Und Die Konstruktion von Nature und Technik. Ursula
Pasero – Anja Gottburgsen (Hrsg.) Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2002, pp. 167–177.
Palasik, M. – Papp, E. (2007): Women in science – Overview of Hungary. Institute of
Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2007, Prague
Papp, Eszter: Equal opportunities in research in Hungary. In The effects of globalisation on
national and international socio-economic processes, presentations of the I. national
conference of the BUTE GTK Engineering and Management Doctoral School, Budapest, 9
November 2004. pp 235–243.
Papp, Eszter: A nők és férfiak közti esélyegyenlőség helyzete a kutatás-fejlesztésben
Magyarországon nemzetközi összehasonlításban, PhD értekezés, Budapest, 2007, Kézirat
Tamás, Pál: Kutatónők a magyar tudományban. – Women researchers in Hungarian
sciences Magyar Tudomány, 1984/1–2.
74
The situation women long ago and now. Központi Statisztikai Hivatal – Central Statistical
Office, Budapest, 1960/3.
Thun, Éva: „Hagyományos pedagógia” – feminista pedagógia. Educatio, 1996/3(5)
Vámos, Éva: A nők műszaki és természettudományos oktatása. In Nagy Beáta, S. Sárdi
(szerk.): Margit. Szerep és alkotás. Női szerepek a társadalomban és az
alkotóművészetekben. Csokonai Kiadó, Debrecen, 1997, pp. 205–213.
Vári, Péter – Bánfi, Ilona – Felvégi, Emese és mtsai: A tanulók tudásának változása II. rész.
– A Monitor ’99 felmérés előzetes eredményei. Új Pedagógiai Szemle, 2000/7–8.
75
10. Annex: Short summaries of interviews
BME_1
Career path:
He graduated at ELTE (Eötvös Loránd University) in 1971, he is a mathematician. He taught
at ELTE between 1972 and 1990, he worked part-time till 1984, since he had a full-time job
at the Research Institute for Telecommunications from 1972 to 1984. He has been a lecturer
at BME (Budapest University of Technology and Economics) since 1990. He has been head
of department for 10 years.
His career path was quite balanced without serious setbacks. Gaining an academic
degree generally demands less time for mathematicians than for engineers or researchers of
life sciences. His highest academic qualification is Doctor of Science in Mathematics.
He has been interested in maths since elementary school. When he was a grammar
school student, maths competitions and mathematical journals played an important role in his
life. At university he had decisive teachers but they rather influenced him in his choice of
theme. The mentality of his family and the languages he speaks helped his career as well as
his excellent professors at university.
His biggest professional achievement is the first Springer-monography on the matroid
theory and its technological adoptions. He discovered – together with a Japanese researcher
– that there are two kinds of current tension symmetry in electric networks theory. He was
awarded his first prize when he was a student, since then he has won a number of prizes
(both Hungarian and foreign).
His current goal and plan for the next five years is to continue his research.
Current position:
His current position is professor, head of department (since 1997). According to the
reverberations his activity as head of department is good. His assignments as head of
department has been extended every time so far and his students elected him as honorary
student. The Hungarian university system is similar to the Prussian so the head of
department has too much power in spite of control mechanisms and democracy. This excess
power can be used for either good or bad purposes.
Access to resources:
The allowance for the head of department is not commensurable with the energy that must
be put into this activity.
76
There is quite a big congestion at the department. His colleagues spend a lot of time
at the department, more teachers work in the same office then it is desirable. Mathematicians
can work in the library or at home because there is no need of special equipment, though.
Publications:
His publications were written in co-authorship in 40 %. Beyond the number of publications
the indicators of scientific achievement can be course book writing, conference-organizing,
industrial application or fundraising. These activities are expected from senior teachers and
researchers.
Life-work balance:
He is married with 2 children, both of them are students. His wife is a professor and a vicedean at the Technical University. He can easily combine his family and work responsibilities.
His wife cooks only on weekends and the household appliances help her. When he teaches
abroad, his family always follows him. It does not mean radical changes; only the structure of
the day is changed.
Mathematicians can work at home, that is a question of correctness and common sense.
Critical areas:
He would be surprised if his colleagues mentioned any sexual or other kinds of harassment.
He has never heard of any discrimination regarding the achievements of men and women in
maths in Hungary. Maybe there are more women in the field of maths than in engineering or
life sciences in Hungary. There are female members of HAS (Hungarian Academy of
Sciences), doctors of sciences and associated professors. In public education there are more
women than men but if there is an alternative between a man and a woman, often the man is
chosen to be the director of the school. In his department there are more women than men
as well, but they are teachers not leaders. On the other hand he thinks women and men do
not face a different situation in a scientific career. In maths achievement is very clear
because scientists are not depending on laboratories, equipment or aid.
There is a historical inheritance that women have less possibility to access leading
positions, but it is not a specific scientific matter. If we take care to keep democratic norms
and objectivity – which are not female specific – it helps this problem. There is a biological
determination that women have maternity leave. When an excellent female colleague went
on maternity leave, it did not cause a problem for her.
77
Criteria of excellence:
He thinks if one wants to achieve high-standard results, he or she needs to work hard but
nobody has to be a workaholic. It is a basic expectation to refrain from plagiarism.
Natural sciences Grade A Male Over 55
78
BME_2
Career path:
He graduated at ELTE (he is a mathematician) in 1978 then he was employed as an
informatician, but held lectures at the university in the meantime. Since 1980 he has been
teaching at BME. He did researches with good results in the beginning but he gave it up. His
research failures caused a serious slowdown in his career advancement.
He attended a special physics and maths at grammar school, but he didn’t think of
being a mathematician. When he started to prepare for the final exam with maths tests and
performed them with flying colours, he became self-confident. His friends played an
important role in his university application and later in the selection of theme, too.
His biggest professional achievement is the Széchenyi Professor Scholarship. He considers
it to be an important achievement that he met a Japanese scientist at a conference who
relied on his results for they research.
It is absolutely impossible for him to plan everything accurately for the next five years.
Current position:
His current position is associated professor and his highest academic qualification is a PhD
degree. He is unable to mention down-to-earth material things about research activity, but it
certainly means a kind of liberty, since he might decide what to deal with. He is much more
motivated in teaching than in research; he likes teaching very much. But besides teaching all
his activities are connected to research, and its infrastructure: writing books about softwares
related to sciences and editing a scientific journal.
Access to resources:
Sharing his room with his colleague does not disturb him; the PCs and other equipment are
suitable for teaching and working. He had some experience in teamwork, but he thinks maths
is a ‘solitary’, individual science. He works at home a lot, because it is undisturbed.
Publications:
Rarely has he published studies recently, but earlier he had some that brought him success.
Also, he had several co-authorships. The publications might per se represent value, but in
the judgement of a scientist a lot of other extra-scientific factors have some impact, such as
personality.
79
Life-work balance:
He is married with 2 children, they are both students. His wife is an informatician. She
dedicates more time to the family and the household than him, but now he thinks it was his
bad timetable not his job that meant an obstacle. He thinks the kindergarden of BME was a
very good facility for the teachers’ and researchers’ families, and he could take the children
to kindergarden.
Critical areas:
He has never heard of any sexual harassment at university but he wouldn’t be surprised if he
had. He thinks if a woman wants to do research but she is bottlenecked because of her
gender status, it is very bad – both for women and for science. He doesn’t consider it as a
disadvantage when a female scientist is married with children, which makes her spend more
time with her family, although this situation might be a disadvantage for her career. But it is a
different situation when she is disadvantaged merely because of being a woman.
He thinks in our days it is a fashionable theory that men and women are different in
mentality, thinking etc. from birth. Whether these differences can make a man or a woman a
more competent expert in sciences or in an executive position, he does not know the answer.
He thinks the quota-system is not the proper solution but rather a wry effort.
He thinks technological sciences are mainly a masculine field. But on the other hand
in maths the results are the best evidences of competence. There are women in leading
positions in his faculty but not as a result of their achievements, but because they are
considered to be most correct and reliable.
Criteria of excellence:
There is a big fight in sciences so even if someone is most talented, he or she must work
hard. The excellent scientist is the person with whom a theme can be associated and who
can use his or her knowledge as an instinct in his or her own theme. Moreover, someone
who has enough knowledge on other topics to help students.
Natural sciences Grade B Male 36-55
80
BME_3
Career path:
She graduated in 1986 from the Faculty of Architecture at BME. From 1986 to 1990 she
worked at the Science Institute for City-Planning where she made plans of buildings, project
proposals and implementation plans. In 1990 she became a self-employed designer. From
1992 she was an external lecturer at BME, and she has been a full time lecturer since 2005.
She absolved her PhD-lessons, but she hasn’t finished her degree yet. The obstacles are the
following: she is a practising city planner, she teaches and above all she is not interested in
her earlier theme any more.
She was interested in art history and especially in historical buildings, and more
students were admissible at BME than at ELTE (art historian as major subject). A most
eager, a young teacher of hers played an important part in her choice of subject and a very
amiable architect helped her find her first workplace.
Her biggest professional achievement is a publication that was a big and keynote
professional challenge and the whole professional community accepted it. Students generally
put their names down for her course, which is a very important confirmation for her.
Her current goal is to take a PhD-degree and finish her research connected with her
PhD-studies.
Current position:
Her current position is assistant professor. As most of her female colleagues she is mostly
satisfied with having a given amount of leeway in which she can freely act. It is very
important for her that she can direct an own research in her leeway, but she doesn’t want to
get into a leading position.
Access to resources:
City-planning is a typical team-work, but she finds it hard to work in a team. She prefers
working alone and at home due to her strong personality and the great congestion in the
office. Life is too “dense” in the office; four researchers use the same Internet access, so she
only does her teaching and library activities there. The department is not well equipped with
machines, but the library is quite satisfactory.
Publications:
She published for the first time 1 ½ years ago, she does it in order to fulfil the requirements
of the PhD-training. In the process of publishing she has difficulties in doing official
81
procedures and self-managing, much more than in writing or placing. She thinks the number
of publications is not an appropriate indicator, and that the PhD degree is less important than
the DLA degree in her profession. The essence of the latter is a masterpiece, but the
problem with city planning is that they do not engage in buildings.
Life-work balance:
She is married but they live separately with her husband who is an architect, too. She is a
single mother with 2 sons, who are both schoolboys. She can’t easily combine her family and
work responsibilities; she can only manage to organize childcare with the help of the
grandparents. She has already worked abroad as a single woman. She would opt for the
family if she would not be able to carry out both her tasks. She thinks working flexitime,
which usually exists, is a great help for scientists.
Critical areas:
She thinks there is a difference between the evaluation of male and female scientists’
achievements. A man is generally taken more seriously than a woman. She could experience
that men are more easily awarded credibility than women if they stand up and speak
confidently and convincingly. One of the reasons why she chose urban planning is that this
profession has been feminized, and it needs more and better communication skills, ability to
make connections and empathy.
She thinks women and men face a different situation regarding their scientific careers.
She thinks it is hopeless to bring into effect women’s equal opportunities because the family
is basically connected to women and it will always be a problem. Women have a kind of
spiritual restriction which throws an obstacle in the way of their 100% achievement. For
example, women cannot be fully lost in a topic she loves, because she knows that she will
have to stand up and drop it.
Criteria of excellence:
The excellent scientist is someone who is able to build up theory and practice, who has a
spirit and with whom a theme can be associated.
Engineering and Technology Grade C Female 36–
55
82
BME_4
Career path:
She graduated in 2001 from the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and became a PhD student
at the Organic Chemistry Department where she will defend her thesis this year. During her
PhD-years she attained another degree in chemical sciences. Her field of research is
medicinal chemistry.
She has been interested in chemistry since she was a schoolgirl and she had good
teachers at elementary school and grammar school, too. She thought the title of engineer
sounded better than that of a chemical teacher. She had a satisfactory enough average at
university to become a PhD-student and she did not want to work in the industry, because
she thinks industrial work is not for women.
Her current goal is to attain a PhD degree but she does not know how to continue
after that. She has not decided whether to stay at university or not, because of the low
salaries in that field.
Current position:
Her current position is PhD student and engineer of department. It means a monthly fix
amount as a state scholarship for PhD students and she received industrial fellowship 2
years ago (but only for a few months). PhD students are in large number in the department
but there is no competition among them and teachers try to support all of them.
Access to resources:
Her workplace is a small laboratory (approx. 20 square metres) where she and her colleague
– both women – work. Sometimes she must carry heavy pieces of equipment and they could
do with some male help from time to time. Although nearly everybody at the department does
research concerning medicinal chemistry, they have no common research projects.
She can perform her experiments only in a laboratory but she can write her studies at
home, though it only adds up to a small proportion of her research time.
It is a special problem for chemical engineers that there are on-line databases and
query systems they need to be able to start a research by finding relevant studies. They are
very expensive so the department (university) can not afford all of them. In the laboratory
there is no Internet access so she must work at home in the evenings or in the department.
Her work time is basically 8 hours but it is quite flexible. She works in the department
until she finishes, she usually doesn’t work at home.
Publications:
83
She wrote her first scientific essay for the Scientific Student's Association with good results
when she was a third-year student and these results affected the theme of her degree work
and brought her 2 international publications as well. Generally 2 or 3 people write a chemical
publication: one of them prepares the analysis, the other one puts it together and the
supervisor must be included, too.
Life-work balance:
She is single; she lives alone, while her family lives in the countryside. She chose her career
independently, she did not let anybody influence her, and her parents are very proud of her
now. Her salary is enough for the overheads and her monthly expenses, but her parents
occasionally support her. She thinks she will finish this job when she has a baby because it is
very dangerous (she usually works with poisons).
On the other hand she thinks the work hours for researchers are flexible at universities and it
is a great advantage for them.
Critical areas:
She thinks mutual respect exists among people, even for female scientists. Although she has
heard of verbal sexual harassment, her personal experience is that men are very polite to
their female colleagues. Female students become PhD students in large numbers; they wish
to have a successful scientific career at least taking a PhD degree. Women have the
opportunity to get into executive positions, but they often step back. When they are about to
gain a leading position, they usually have a family, so they are liable to give priority their
families instead of career advancement.
People usually like working with women in a laboratory environment, because they
are better at keeping order and this job must be done as well.
Criteria of excellence:
The excellent scientist is motivated, has original ideas and has the knowledge to realize
them. He or she should be a good leader who can direct his or her team, and should engage
in the topic regularly. The real success is that if his name is well-known in his field.
Engineering and Technology Grade D Female Up to
35
84
BME_5
Career path:
She always had excellent results in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology at
secondary school, so she applied to BME. She graduated at the university in 1972-ben as a
chemical engineer. From 1972 to 1975 she worked as a research fellow in the inorganic
chemistry research group of ELTE Hungarian Academy of Sciences. From 1975 she worked
at BME, Research Centre of the Department of Agricultural Chemical Technology, Faculty of
Chemical Engineering. From 1977 to 1981 she worked at the Department as an assistant
lecturer; then from 1981 to 1992 as a senior lecturer. In the meanwhile she took a PhD
degree. In 1992 she became an associate professor (docent). In 2000 she was granted a
Széchenyi Professor Scholarship. She had great luck in selecting her professional specialty.
Nobody was interested in bio fuels 30 years ago; by now it has become a focused topic. It is
good luck – she claims – that the world is interested in this issue at present. Her field of
research and the world’s interest have finally met. She has always adhered to her field of
research without changing from one field to another.
Current position:
At present, she works as an associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Food
Technology. She is satisfied with her achievements. She has always done her best at home,
as well as at work. For the next few years her main objective at work is to ensure appropriate
research projects for her doctoral candidates and help them realize it to the best of their
knowledge.
Access to resources:
She is not sufficiently supported by her current workplace. She must find all the means for
her work on her own. Not even professional support was provided to her; the last time she
had an instructor was when she was writing her diploma dissertation. Except her salary,
everything that is needed for her research work must be organized by her. In her opinion, this
is the Hungarian reality: you must fight for everything. Basically, her office is appropriately
equipped. She can do efficient work there from 7 to 9 in the morning; then students are
coming and the telephone is ringing all the time. As writing articles and correcting papers
demand deeper concentration, she performs these tasks at home.
Within the Department, members of her group cooperate but she has not experienced
real team-work anywhere else. Her closest colleagues live in Sweden. She discusses
professional issues with them and her doctoral candidates.
85
Publications:
She can write publications only when working extremely hard. Being regularly awarded with
several research grants, she is able to ensure financial resources needed for her research.
She thinks informative lectures are important; therefore she holds many lectures. In her
opinion, scientific results mustn’t be kept a secret – they should be made available to the
public.
Life-work balance:
She has three children and six grandchildren. They live quite close to each other so the
family is kept together. Her husband is a chemical engineer as well but he worked in the
country a lot. Her mother-in-law provided much help in childcare – remarkably contributing to
her scientific career. She has never had to stay at home when the children were ill; these
problems have always been solved by the grandmother. She considers the help of the family
very important. Nevertheless, she has had the feeling of not spending enough time with her
children several times; still, when she is at home, she feels that she lags behind in her work.
Seldom has she felt balance between the two but most women feel the same – she claims.
She has always spent the summer with her children; these two months serve for
revitalization. Now she does not accept invitations abroad anymore; her main goal is to
ensure an appropriate number of projects for her research group. She thinks it is important to
learn to say ’no’.
Critical areas:
Women still have the chance to build up a professional career if they want. She disagrees
with the introduction of a quota-system. For her, family is at least as important as the
professional career. Therefore she never really wanted to have a leading position as she
would not have been able to undertake it. She deems her women colleagues at the
Department very active. Three of the four project leaders are women.
Criteria of excellence:
It is crucial that the researcher be very keen on his/her field of research. Researchers should
always preserve a, fresh open-minded approach. A researcher must have the courage to ask
questions and find the answers.
Engineering and Technology
Grade B
Female
Over
55
86
BME_6
Career path:
After finishing secondary school, she applied to BME, Faculty of Chemical Engineering. At
the beginning, her results were also good, but later they became excellent. At the end of her
studies she was granted a state scholarship that was granted only to a small percentage of
the students. After graduating at the university in 1971 she stayed there as an associate
researcher in the framework of a research grant program. After two years, she became an
assistant lecturer. In 1978 she took a PhD degree, and then in 1979 she became a assistant
professor. She gave birth to her daughter in 1984 and to her son in 1986. She stayed at
home with the children for a while and in the meanwhile she wrote her dissertation. She
became a docent (associate professor) in 1994 and a university professor in 1998.
Current position:
From 1998 she has been working as a university professor. Her career was not always
smooth-running but finally it became well-balanced. She had several tasks to do that were
independent from her professional work. She received much support in building up her
career. Her husband helped much in taking care of the children, promoting her professional
career. From 2000 to 2007 she was the vice-dean (education) of the Faculty of Chemical
Engineering. She is satisfied with her present position. Her plans for the next years include
the analysis of her latest research results. She intends to spend more time with writing
articles (papers); this activity was somewhat displaced by her tasks as a vice-dean.
Access to resources:
Having won several grants she was able to provide financial resources for her research work.
She
has
been
awarded
OTKA-grants
(OTKA:
Országos
Tudományos
Kutatási
Alapprogramok, Hungarian Scientific Research Fund Programmes) several times and she
has also participated in two national research projects of the Faculty. Within this research
field (fibres, textiles) there are only few grants to apply for. Only team-work can bring
success in this research field of textiles. In addition to her university colleagues, she can
successfully cooperate with other institutes.
87
Publications:
She has approximately 60 publications of high scientific reputation (they have been cited
several times). Publication potential is quite restricted in her field of research. New
applications of ’fibre chemistry’ are being searched for; this is a European phenomenon. Coauthorship is quite frequent in this field because of the great number of measurements that
large equipment requires. She agrees with the habit that everybody who helps perform the
instrumental measurements is indicated as co-author.
Life-work balance:
She is married with two children who are university students at present. Her husband is the
head of a university department, as a university professor. She was provided much help by
her husband; they brought up the children together. It is absolutely recommended to stay at
home with the children as long as possible, even for 3 years – she claims. She does cooking
at the weekends: she makes food for the whole week then, in order to save time during
weekdays. There are certain types of work that can be performed also at home; therefore
she works at home when it is possible, too (such as administrative, deadline works related to
vice-dean position). It is easier to write a paper, a scientific article at home.
Critical areas:
Equal rights are not always provided for women in building a professional career. She thinks
that not every woman wants a leading position. Family is very important; nevertheless, for
many young women having children is a hindering factor still today in their professional
careers. Scientific work demands a lot of time so not everybody is able to do it. Women
getting no help in childcare and housekeeping can make only slower progress in their
scientific careers. In her opinion, attaining scientific degrees is not the only way of building
up a career.
Criteria of excellence:
You should have a high level of professional knowledge; be familiar with the latest results,
literature and be able to work in cooperation, if required.
Engineering and Technology
Grade A
Female
Over
55
88
BME_7
Career path:
Originally, she applied to the Faculty of Architecture but was admitted to the Faculty of Civil
Engineering of the Technical University of Budapest, in 1990. She graduated in Civil
engineering in 1995 (Department of Structural Mechanics, structural engineer). She got
specially close to geology; dealing with rocks and stones made her interested in architecture
and historical monuments. She wrote her diploma dissertation partly at the Faculty of
Mineralogy at the University of Karlsruhe; its language was German but she submitted it in
Budapest. After her successful diploma dissertation (she got a certificate of merit from the
Germans) cooperation with the German colleagues continued. Between 1995 and 1998 she
was a regular doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Engineering Geology at the Technical
University of Budapest. During her PhD years she spent some months in Karlsruhe several
times, partly performing her research work there. Simultaneously she performed training in
preservation engineering at the Faculty of Architecture, Technical University of Budapest. In
1998 she submitted a secondary diploma dissertation and took a degree in monument
preservation engineering, too. Meanwhile she worked on her PhD but could not finish it. After
three years of being a PhD student, she wished to stay at the Faculty of Civil Engineering,
Department of Engineering Geology but they had no vacancy and told her that this position
was not for women. In this unstable situation she was offered a position at the Faculty of
Architecture. She was intended to work in the Monument Laboratory about to be established
there. These plans were not realized so finally she began to work as a department engineer
in the Laboratory of Heat Physics, at the Faculty of Architecture. From 1998 she worked
there as an engineer and took a PhD degree in 2002-ben with a „summa cum laude” result.
At present she is a research fellow here. From January 1, 2007, Laboratory of Heat Physics
was ceased; respectively it merged into the Department of Energetics and Service Systems,
Faculty of Architecture. She returned to work from maternity leave on September 1 but she
still does not know in where exactly she is going to work.
Current position:
She was admitted to the Laboratory of Heat Physics as a department engineer since there
was no vacancy for a lecturer. At that time she was assigned for an indefinite period of time.
A PhD degree normally goes hand in hand with a senior lecturer position but she was told
that she had to go through every grade of hierarchy first. So she is a research fellow at the
moment, assigned for a definite 3-year period. She won a postdoctoral competition published
by OTKA, so she had to go on an unpaid holiday in order to get the OTKA-grant.
89
BME 7 eng 2
Then she went on a maternity leave that she interrupted later to return to her work at the
university. Her definite-period assignment will end on December 31, 2008; her future position
is still uncertain.
Access to resources:
No significant financial and other infrastructural support was given to her. She had mentors,
and consultants, all of them at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and at the Faculty of
Architecture. They provided remarkable professional support, similarly to the professors in
Karlsruhe. On becoming a department engineer, she had not even got an own desk or a PC.
Although she had a table in a smaller lecture room she could not work efficiently there due to
the lectures. After being awarded several grants, she was able to buy a PC, a Xerox
machine, a digital camera and other devices. Also from this resource, she had a furnace
built. Cessation of the Laboratory of Heat Physics made the future of this high-value furnace
uncertain.
Publications:
She has written quite a lot of publications. This tendency was somewhat reduced by the birth
of her daughter but she hopes it is only temporary. Her specialty is the examination of rocks
(stones) at high temperatures respectively in fire, with special respect to the stones of
historical buildings, monuments. Her field of research is also related to engineering, geology,
materials science; in other words it is an adjoining area of several disciplines. This diversity
makes it more difficult to publish papers since it cannot be ranked as an individual,
independent specialty. There are only few Hungarian journals of high reputation; on the other
hand, it usually takes a lot of time to have a paper published in foreign journals.
Life-work balance:
Her father is a chemical engineer, her mother works as a foreign trade representative. They
always supported her higher education and study tours abroad. Also her husband tolerates
the fact that she regularly does paperwork at home, far into the night. Family support is very
important to her. She has an 18-month old daughter; her mother helps a lot. Her parents
provided her also professional support; they reviewed her doctoral dissertation as they both
speak German very well.
90
Critical areas:
You may often encounter discrimination, but it is rather about an antipathy towards young
professionals. Elder professionals claim that they also had to wait for a long time to be
promoted. In the field of civil engineering she was told several times that female students
have nothing to do with this specialty. Obstacle clearing is also problematic; moving with
wheelchair or pram is quite hard. More support should be provided for young mothers on
maternity leave so that they do not get out of professional practice. It was not favourable for
women’s situation, either, that the kindergarten was ceased at the university. Her experience
shows that it is much harder for women to work as a technical engineer but there must be
areas where females are preferred.
Criteria of excellence:
You must be smart, quick-quitted. You cannot be lazy and must have a goal. It is essential
for a researcher to be flexible; when getting a result, you must be ready to use it in your
work. Speaking languages is also important, in addition to good communication skills. Also
you should be persevering, and mustn’t give up even after a failure.
Engineering and Technology
Research fellow
with PhD
Female
Up to
35
91
BME_8
Career path:
The milestones of her science career are the following: degree in electronic engineering from
the university BME: 1973; university doctor: 1980; PhD degree: 1995; habilitated at BME:
2004; D.Sc of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences: 2005. She has been working for the
department since 1973. She has been a professor and a head of department since 2005.
She had a slowdown in her career due to maternity leave, she has two children. She went
through a hard period when they were building their house; they had to rent a flat for eight
years. Her career speeded up when her children started to go to secondary school. After her
graduation, one of her professors recommended her to continue with PhD studies. She was
very interested in the field of research at the department. She has changed her interest in her
field, because she did not like computer programming.
Financial problems were the main obstacles at the beginning of her career. She had no
significant achievements at that time. She was very interested in her research area. Her
career was supported by two mentors: by the above-mentioned professor, a head of
department at the university BME and by a French professor who assisted her career at
international level. She is convinced that every researcher (male or female) needs support
from one or more mentors in order to achieve a scientific career. Her colleagues have the
highest regard for her as they elected her head of department. She received several awards
like Teacher of the Year in 1995, Széchenyi Professor Scholarship in 1997, DATE design
contest award in 2000, Harvey Rosten Award of excellence for outstanding work in the field
of thermal analysis of electronic equipment in 2001.
In her opinion, her biggest professional achievement is a spin-off company created by
the department ten years ago which runs successfully. She thinks that the performance of
scientists is equally evaluated regardless of their gender. Her plan for the next five years is to
enhance competitiveness of the department at the international level in the most important
fields.
Work, career progress:
She is a professor and a head of department, both very recognized positions. The negative
side of being in managerial position: she dislikes hunting after money, but she has to do it as
the department has financial difficulties. They permanently have to submit project proposals
in order to have access to financial resources. She likes holding conference presentations
abroad and achieving results in research. She is the first female head of department at the
faculty. Her promotion was supported by the above-mentioned professor, head of
department. It depends on personality and not on gender how much someone desires a
leading position.
92
Access to resources:
She works in her own office. Her closest colleagues are situated next door. She considers
her research to be a group work; she has very good experiences in it. The team work is
evaluated in meetings and in person. She works twelve hours a day, but she does it
exclusively at the university. She has easy access to all the meetings important for her work
thanks to her French mentor who supported her career in the beginning. Man and woman
scientists have no equal opportunities to achieve a scientific career because women have to
give birth to children and keep the house. That is the case even if men help them much.
Publications:
She and her colleagues are very successful at publishing their results. In her field, research
presents a team work, thus every result has to be collective. She finds the number of
publications a good indicator. Awards also have to be evaluated as the achievements of a
scientist. In her opinion, the spin-off company is an achievement, too. She believes that an
excellent scientist is necessarily a workaholic.
Work-life balance, mobility:
She is married with two children, both adults. She devoted much time to her family, but her
husband helped her a lot when their children were younger. Her parents are dead, but she
had to look after them for ten years. During that time she used to spend two hours a day with
them. She regularly travelled to France to do research. She spent some months there, and
she did not have any problem as she took her daughter with herself. Her parents supported
her very strongly throughout her career. She sacrificed some important work not to let down
her family, but she was basically able to combine her family and work responsibilities.
Distance work and flexible working hours would help researchers effectively. She thinks that
she was fortunate concerning her family, colleagues and flexible work. These elements are
essential for women so that they could make a scientific career. Nowadays, work is easier
due to the internet.
Leaving research career:
She knows some people who have left research career due to financial reasons. This reason
is a typical one for leaving. It is not evident that a woman can make a career at this
department. She has a female colleague who had no mentor, and her female boss pushed
her into the background because of professional jealousy, thus she could not make a career.
93
Critical areas:
There are only few women in leading positions in sciences because their families and
colleagues do not support them. Basically, men have more chances in their scientific
careers. Harassment has never happened at the department, but she was in a
disadvantaged situation because she is a woman. It is difficult to find solutions to improve
gender equality in sciences. In her opinion, implementation of policy actions would help, and
it would be fair to increase the number of women in some areas. The European Commission
for example recommends target figures in order to increase the participation of women in the
evaluation panels of the Framework Programme.
Criteria of excellence:
An excellent scientist has to be persistent, and has to speak foreign languages. Writing skills
are also a very important element. Industrial application is also considered as scientific
success. In Hungary, unfair evaluation can happen in awarding prizes as it is strongly
influenced by politics. Nevertheless, awarding is fair at the international level.
Engineering and Technology Grad A Female Over 55
94
BME 9 En
BME_9
Career path:
She graduated in mathematics at the university ELTE in 1983; afterwards she started to work
for the Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA
SZTAKI). She went to the USA to pursue PhD studies in 1987, and received her PhD degree
in 1994. After returning to Hungary, she continued her research activity at MTA SZTAKI as
an assistant research fellow (1983-86), and then as a research fellow (1986-99), finally as a
senior research fellow (1999-2004). At the same time, she also had a part time work at the
university BME as a senior lecturer (from 1997), then as an associate professor (from 1999).
She has been working as a full-time associate professor for the BME since 2004. She had a
slowdown in her career as her PhD studies lasted too long. She made a long stay in the USA
for family reasons and because of the uncertain situation in Hungary which resulted from the
reorganization of research institutes. Her field of research is situated on the verge of
mathematics and computer science, but her interest changes within this field from time to
time.
Her elementary school maths’ teacher (female) encouraged her to participate in an
extracurricular study group and then she suggested she should go to a secondary school
specialising in mathematics. She was interested in mathematics and in research. She did not
face any obstacles during her career. Her publications and conference presentations gave
real sense of achievements. She had the opportunity to change ideas with colleagues which
was inspiring and very important for her.
Her promotion was supported by the head of department (male). She was not
ambitious of leading positions. She has several highly cited publications and professional
achievements. She thinks that her research activity is recognized. She does not plan any
promotion, but she does not find it out of the question. In her opinion, the performance of a
scientist is equally evaluated regardless of gender.
Work, career progress:
Her position is recognized, however it does not present the top of a research career. She
receives the necessary support for her work. Her research activity is motivated by curiosity,
and she likes achieving new results. She does not like the struggle for positions. In her
opinion, leading positions are less desired by women. There are only few women at the
departments in the field of technology. She thinks that there are equal opportunities for
women and men at the department, and more or less that is the case at the faculty.
95
BME 9 En
Access to resources:
She works mainly with foreign researchers living in other countries. She works in her own
office. She likes team work, she finds it very inspiring. Achievements of team work have to be
collective. She does research more quietly at home, but meetings are more effective in the
office. The department gives opportunity for flexible working hours. She has easy access to
all the tools and meetings important for her work. Nothing is missing for her research activity.
Sometimes, she is confronted with opinions like women are not good at leadership, but she
can also hear the opposite. She finds that emotions sometimes help settling conflicts.
Publications:
She has no difficulties in publishing her results. The number of publications is not enough to
evaluate achievements. The quality of publications also has to be taken into account. Other
elements are important as well, for example researchers suggest good ideas to others or
support young talents. It is difficult to measure these elements. She does not think that an
excellent scientist has to be necessarily a workaholic. Researchers who contributed to the
work are definitely co-authors of the article. Nowadays, researchers can more easily share
their ideas due to the internet. Earlier, one or two authors were the maximum, but today
cooperation of four or five co-authors is more typical. Professional cooperation is usually
based on existing networks, but sometimes new professional relations can also be set up.
Work-life balance, mobility:
She has no children, she lives alone. Earlier, she had serious difficulties in looking after her
mother. Colleagues at her previous workplace helped her considerably in that situation with
distance work and flexible working hours. Her family encouraged her to continue her studies
in the USA otherwise she would not have done it. The department also gives opportunity for
flexible working hours. Her colleagues with children can combine their family and work
responsibilities however they need some assistance from the grandparents or the
kindergarden.
Leaving research career:
She knows several researchers who have left a scientific career due to financial reasons.
Mainly, young scientists take into consideration that industry offers higher salaries than
universities do. Some of her colleagues are planning to leave research for the same reason.
At the same time, they would like to continue to work for the university as part time
researchers, because they need intellectual activity.
96
BME 9 En
Critical areas:
There are few women in this field, thus it is understandable that only few of them become
leaders. Furthermore, most women are not ambitious for leading positions. She would be
surprised, if one of her colleagues mentioned any kind of harrassment as a problem at their
workplace. It would be useful to encourage girls at elementary and secondary school to
choose a scientific career and convince them that it is a real opportunity for them, too. In
general, girls think that research presents a strong competition which is less desirable for
them. She finds that policy actions can be disadvantageous, since the promotion of talented
women would also be questionable due to support actions.
Criteria of excellence:
An excellent scientist must have curiosity, strong motivation and driving force. The number of
publications is a significant indicator, but quality is more important then mere quantity. A
researcher will be awarded, if a member of the award committee remembers him/her and
nobody strongly opposes his/her nomination. Every awarded researcher is excellent, but not
every excellent scientist receives a prize. Sometimes, unfair evaluation can happen in
awarding prizes.
Engineering and Technology Grade B Female 36-55
97
BME_10
Career path:
He participated in innovation competitions at secondary school. After graduating from the
university BME, he started to pursue his PhD studies. He is a lecturer. There is a slowdown
in his career due to the fact that he has not received his PhD degree yet. One of the reasons
of the slowdown is that he would like to devote more time to his private life. The main reason
is the shortage of opportunities for carrying out high-level research for industry because of
the lack of demand by this sector in Hungary, and PhD degrees are generally based on
research for industry. The major field of research of his thesis was ship design. His present
research interests focus on a specific area of this major field. After his graduation, he was
recommended to do PhD studies, and then he became a lecturer. He likes doing research.
These elements motivated him to pursue a scientific career. His decision was also influenced
by the fact that it is difficult to find an appropriate job in this sector of industry.
The head of department who is the supervisor of his PhD studies supported his
career. His work is recognized by his bosses. His thesis was awarded by the Hungarian
Patent Office. He thinks that the performance of female and male scientists is equally
evaluated. There are fewer woman scientists, because men are more interested in
engineering and technology. He finds that his future is quite unstable because there are
uncertain circumstances at the university. Moreover, he would like to found a family, but his
present salary is not high enough for that. Probably, he will have new opportunities; he would
like to participate in international education at the university.
Work, career progress:
Considering his lecturer position, he is an early-stage researcher situated at the bottom of
the hierarchy. He likes doing research as he can see the results of his work and it is
recognized even abroad. He does not like doing financial administration of projects because
the system works badly at the university. In his opinion, the positive side of being in
managerial positions is the power. The negative side is the continuous fight against financial
and other problems. Leading positions are equally accessible for women and men since
there are women head of departments and women deans at the faculty. Managerial positions
are less desired by women as they are more realistic or they do not find it attractive. There
are few female students at the faculty, but there are relatively more women among PhD
students.
Access to resources:
He shares his office with one of his colleagues. At the department, they generally work in
team. They share their work proportionally in every project. The team work is evaluated, but
98
there is no individual evaluation. He works more effectively at home, because he has many
duties at the university, he has to teach, etc. Nevertheless, meetings are more effective in
the office. He has no difficulties in accessing meetings important for his work. When they
miss some tools, they borrow or buy it, but the latter usually takes a long process. Lack of
time presents a big problem for him as he undertakes extra jobs for financial reasons. He has
confronted opinions like women are not good at leadership, but he finds that these opinions
are not typical. Expectations against women and men are the same at work, while women
have more duties and obligations in the family.
Publications:
He has difficulties in publishing his results in scientific journals in Hungary and abroad, too. In
Hungary, there are few scientific journals in his research area. Hungarian research results
are not too interesting for journals abroad considering the insufficiency of opportunities for
carrying out high-level research for industry. In his team, they speak English that is why they
can not publish articles in the German language area. In the English language area, research
activity focuses mainly on maritime navigation, while their major field is inland water
navigation. The quality of publications is more important than their number. Industry
application of inventions, machines also has to be evaluated as the achievements of a
scientist. Researchers who contributed to the work are definitely co-authors of the article.
Nevertheless, it sometimes happens that the supervisor appears among the authors in order
to make publication easier. He appreciates some scientists, and they work very much.
Work-life balance, mobility:
He is single, and he has no children. He lives with his cousin in the same household. He has
never gone abroad to do research, but he would like to do it. If he were married, he would
consider it to be a different situation. At this moment, he thinks that he would not sacrifice
important work not to let down his family. Probably, he would change his opinion, if he had
children. Providing flexible working hours is a good practice at the department. Researchers
have the opportunity to work at home, but work intensity is most unsteady.
Leaving research career:
He knows a PhD student who has left research career due to financial reasons personally.
This reason is typical for leaving. Sometimes, he considers leaving research career. One of
his colleagues has found a solution: he undertook a part time job for a company while he
continues to work for the university, too.
99
Critical areas:
There are few women in leading positions, because there are few women in technical
sciences and because women have more obligations in the family. Women have to give birth
to children, it is a biological necessity. That period usually presents a break in their careers.
Scientists have to devote a lot of time to their work to get achievements. He knows some
woman scientists who are able to combine their work and family responsibilities, but women
need some support from their families. Flexible working hours or a kindergarden at the
university represent good practices. He would support policy actions in order to improve
appreciation of woman scientists, but he does not know exactly how it would be possible. No
harassment has ever happened at the department.
Criteria of excellence:
He considers industry application of inventions as scientific success. An excellent scientist
has to have inventions which are applicable to the industry and has to support young talents.
A prize represents the recognition of a certain achievement, but relationships and previous
results of the scientist are also taken into account. That is the case not only in Hungary, but
also abroad.
Engineering and Technology Grade C Male Up to 35
100
BME_11
Career path
He obtained his PhD degree in 2002 at the Department of Transportation Automation at
BME. He spent two years here with contract after that he became a demonstrator and later
an assistant professor. He was interested in railroad systems in his whole childhood. He
already knew he wanted to get admission to the Faculty of Transportation during his
secondary school years. During his university studies he got involved in several industrial
work projects in his recent department so he had some practical experience and knew why
he wanted to stay there as a PhD student. Although he fulfilled all the required obligations for
the degree he is not absolutely sure to stay in the research field in the next 15-20 years.
Current position
He has been working for the Department of Transportation Automation as an assistant
professor. He likes his job even though it was rather a must and a random choice than a
conscious preparation for this place. During his student life he wanted to start an industrial
job several times because of better financial conditions. These ideas never came true.
His working position can be determined with two focus points connecting to the
department: he is doing education and research. Although it was never planned earlier the
first part takes more time of his life. What he likes the most is the synergy of these activities;
teaching means the practical the other the theoretical part of his work. These activities are
useful and keep his mind active.
In the other part of his time he does practical engineering as his own business. It
means different duties, sometimes more sometimes less working hours.
Access to resources
There are 16-17 researchers at the department divided into groups of 2-3 persons. A working
group is rather separated and very rarely cooperates with another one. Recently, he has
been doing his researches with a professor together who used to be his supervisor. They
work with two other persons together, so they have a four-member team.
The technical equipment or the facilities of the laboratory are neither an important nor
a central question in his research field. It happens most rarely that a practical laboratory work
is needed, although in these cases the conditions are satisfactory. Unfortunately the
technical accessories at the university and also at their department are rather weak and out
of use. Years ago there were industrial orders for some railroad test machineries and the
department was able to fabricate these installations. Today these workshops do not exist in
their original form any more; the places are used as schoolrooms. The required computer
based background is given, so they can do the researches appropriately.
101
Publications
He published articles in Hungarian as well as in English papers and accomplished all the
required conditions to achieve the PhD degree during his studying years. That means
altogether 20-30 different articles mostly published in international papers. Since this
pressure of publishing on his shoulder disappeared the number of his publications has
decreased. He writes an article only when a research method is finished, which means once
or twice a year. The level of these work tasks are even better, the articles published ever
since have been of better quality than earlier.
Work-life balance
He has two children but it has never been difficult for him to find the balance between his
work and family life. He saw this role model in his childhood: his father used to work at the
university, too; they knew the expression “flexible” workplace and working hours. Since he
works in the business sphere as well, he is in a special situation. The own business requires
other conditions and systematic working hours. It is possible to harmonize these two types of
working methods, some university projects can also be done at home. It was not so evident
in the beginning because with small children there were periods when there was not a quiet
place in the apartment. Now, they are six and nine so he has a chance to find the time and
place for work.
Critical areas
He believes railroad engineering is a typical male profession. The rate of female/male
researchers at the department also enhances this feeling: there are only three women there.
Almost the same rate exists among the students, in a group of 300 people there are only 20
girls. He feels that gender equality does not mean strengthening women’s aspect on matters
which are naturally far from their attitude. This does not mean a kind of difference in the level
of knowledge but simply that the research field of railroad engineering is naturally rather a
male profession, even though there are female researchers in this field, too.
Criteria of excellence
The excellent researcher has a clear idea about the research goals. He or she has the
needed routine and practical knowledge which can guarantee the usefulness of the results
even of theoretical research. Independent of the gender question it is important to find the
right balance between work and life.
Engineering and Technology Grade C Male Up to 35
102
BME_12
Career Path
He graduated in 2006 from the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Department of Structural
Mechanics. Although he was also interested in informatics he had known he wanted to
become a bridge engineer since his childhood. He got admission to the university by
application test, where he wrote his first paper for the Students’ Scientific Conference in his
second year. Later he changed his research topic and in virtue of his papers written for his
recent department he decided to continue his scientific work in the later on as a PhD student.
During his university years he spent one semester in Krakow and he also started to
work for Főmterv Inc., where he still works as a bridge engineer. The scholarship called
Öveges-project initiated by General Electric gave him the possibility to be employed as a
student.
Current Position
He feels luckier than the other fellows because with the industrial scholarship he has the
possibility to work in the business sphere and stay at the university in the same time. As a
first year PhD student he actively takes part in the work of the department with the
permission of the company. Instead of many lectures he gives only one practice lesson for
graduate students because he has several other duties. He feels important for the lecturers
to have the required routine and practice also in such a theoretical department as theirs.
Only a tight cooperation with the industrial partner can help achieve this goal. The very idea
of the scholarship was to apply the obtained research results in the industrial sphere.
Access to Resources
It is possible to fulfil the theoretical research methods at a sufficient level with the equipment
of the department. They are two in a room and both have their own personal computer
installed with the required softwares. It is mostly basic research they do, professional quality
is demanded: they have a lot of researchers and teachers with scientific degree, four of them
are members of HAS.
Publications
The industrial scholarship also means some restrictions: he can only publish with the
permission of the industrial partner. It might happen that in case of the development of a new
product the achievements are managed as industrial secrets which can never get publicity.
Although Hungarian publications are also required for the PhD degree, they mostly publish in
English for international issues. The Hungarian article he would like to write soon is about the
experiences he gained at the industrial partner. In the later on he would definitely like to
103
publish in periodicals with a higher impact factor even though it is not required for the PhD
degree.
Work-life Balance
He lives together with his wife and their one-month old daughter. He thinks it can be
expected from a 27-year old man that he wants to establish a family. But it could also be a
difficulty to earn a good living for a family with a PhD-scholarship. His good performance and
efficiency don’t depend on the fact whether he is at the department or not or on the working
time. If he has a deadline, he always finishes his work either at home or at the department.
He usually works at home, which is possible, fortunately.
Critical Areas
In his opinion it is a problem that less and less high school students choose universities of
natural sciences and engineering than other universities. This tendency seems to be
changing in the last few years but more time is needed to balance this rate. There are also
problems with the practical knowledge of the university students: it usually happens that they
are looking for result-schemes on specific problems instead of using their own ideas to find
the answers.
He believes it to be a serious problem, that the education at secondary schools is not
strong enough. Especially mathematics education is getting weaker and weaker because
mathematics teachers are also getting less educated.
It also happens several times that PhD students start a job in the business sphere
before graduating. Usually these students do not finish their PhD program any more. There
are two typical situations: either the student had a job when started the PhD so his education
is running out of five years. Or the student started the program as a full-time government
sponsored applicant but did not receive what he or she expected, and quits the program. The
first one is the more typical case.
The rate of women and men is getting better balanced, although there are twice as
many males as females at the department.
Criteria of Excellence
Regardless of the gender, the excellent researcher is an autonomous and self sufficing
person, who does not live for the same schema to replace the measures in. It is important to
have the practical experiences too. It could be probably the best part of his or her engineer
and researcher life to be there at the final presentation of a building designed by him.
Engineering and Technology Grade D Male Up to 34
104
BME_13
Career Path
She attended secondary school in Zalaegerszeg, and during this time she developed a
strong interest in natural sciences. Influenced by her parents she chose the Budapest
University of Technology and Economics instead of Veszprém University. She graduated in
2005 from the Department of Applied Biotechnology and Food Science at BME Faculty of
Chemical Technology and Biotechnology. She is working for her PhD studies in the same
department (finished her second year in 2007). During her studies she spent one semester at
the Biotechnology Research Centre in Finland and another at a university in Sweden. She
specialized in biotechnology and environmental micro-biotechnology during her university
studies. Although she had never prepared with a researcher’s career in mind, she got familiar
with the Department during the university years. So after she graduated she chose three
more years of university life rather than entering industry.
She would definitely like to obtain her doctoral degree but she is a bit uncertain about
her post-school plans: she will have to choose between building her research career and
working at a company.
Current Position
As a PhD student she is required to fulfil lectures and to make research in her field but also
to give lessons at the Department. She is satisfied with her position; it was an interesting
experience to stand from the student’s side to the lecturer’s at once. She holds laboratory
trainings for third and fourth year students.
Access to resources
Unfortunately regarding resources they have weaknesses at the department. The research
field requires sufficient technical equipment and in the lack of that it is hard or impossible to
carry out the experiments. According to the possibilities still they try to perform the measuring
tasks. It is also a problem that the governmental funding covers only 50 to 60 percent of the
department budget. The missing part must be completed from international support.
Research work means rather an individual job but in several projects the cooperation
is satisfactory at the department. She has never felt difficulties in this field as a woman.
Publications
The articles mostly published in international journals in English are competitive works also
at the European level. The researchers are also interested in international participation since
this can be the best way to achieve common projects and funding sources for their works.
105
Work-life balance
She always received the needed moral and financial support from her parents. She has lived
together with her boyfriend for several years and he also gives her the required help. They
do not have children yet, but after the doctoral degree they would definitely like to have one.
She thinks that working at home could also be a possibility since the analysis of the
achievements does not require any special accessories. In the case of article writing it is
even better to stay at home in calmer circumstances.
Critical areas
Professional jealousy is not present at the department. Her consultant always supports her;
she can say only positive things about him. As a PhD student she is the youngest in the team
so she is usually treated like a beginner. It is probably a usual behaviour at any workplace;
people have to spend several years until they are considered as equal partners.
She thinks the main problem probably lays in the deficit of the younger generation’s
knowledge. There is a basic lack of knowledge in the field of natural sciences. She was
surprised when a graduating student wasn’t able to solve an easy calculation. The reason
can be the weakness of the natural sciences education at secondary schools.
The gender question does not mean any problem at the Faculty of Chemical
Technology; she has never had disadvantages in her work.
Criteria of Excellence
Her excellent scientist ideal is like her supervisor. She has a family and is able to have
enough time for her private life but in the same time she is a dynamic, energetic and
continuously-working researcher woman. But probably there is not a definitive recipe for that.
Engineering and Technology Grade D Female Up to 35
106
BME_14
Career Path:
He decided at a very young age that he wanted to be an architect, because his parents
worked as architects as well. Finally at the end of the secondary school it was no doubt that
he was going to become an engineer because he had always been interested in natural
sciences much more than in other subjects. So he passed into the Budapest University of
Technology and Economics after grammar-school. Over the years he specialized in
mechanics and structures, wherein he wrote his dissertation too. He had been working on
this topic in the next seven years and after that he got the doctorate.
He wrote a lot of essays in his field of research and won a lot of prizes as a student. Today
he does research, teaching, and designing.
Current position:
Now he is a senior lecturer. He has been working at the University for seven years. He says
that being a scientist means that you don’t have to work in full time; you can decide how
much time you want to spend with your work etc. It is a lifestyle. But this does not mean that
you don’t have to work 8 hours a day like other people, moreover it means that you could
possibly spend as much time on your current task as even 80 hours a week. Furthermore
there are the administration tasks, the education and the students as well. If somebody
wants to find enough time to do his researches, he must set a limit to the other things
because it is very easy to get lost among challenges.
He says if somebody is working on a topic the senior teachers help him/her, brief
him/her, and give him or her advice and so on. The Department of Architecture is a very cooperative organization, where everybody should count on each other.
He is planning to enter for a competition to get money, because it’s absolutely
necessary for starting his career and for getting into the international circulation. Besides he
takes care to get a higher academic degree too.
Publications:
When he attended the University, he wrote some essays for a competition with more or less
success. Since he became a teacher, he has been an active designer and has done some
research about frames and structures as well. He was a co-author of these jobs, which is a
very common thing in this profession.
He wrote some essays for some foreign journal too, but he hasn’t got references yet.
He thinks that it will take years until these works bear fruit.
107
Work-life balance:
He has a wife, and they are just expecting a baby. His wife studied the same thing as he did,
so she can understand his lifestyle. She knows how these things follow. Because they are
very young and haven’t got children yet, they don’t have problems or conflicts and it is easy
to combine work and family responsibilities.
Critical areas:
He says that there are always some women in the Department, but the proportion of men is
usually much higher. The reason of this is on the one hand that this University is not a typical
female university; on the other hand different genres demand different attitudes and this
doesn’t fit women’s habits. His opinion is that the hardest thing in architecture is that you
always have to make important decisions very quickly wherein females are not very
successful. Even though there should be a lot of talented female in this profession for all that
they are much more handy and precise, which is indispensable in architecture. In spite all of
these things he thinks there are no relevant differences between the two genres in
judgement.
Criteria of Excellence:
In his view there are some scientists who throw themselves into the theoretical sciences and
are very successful. Others practise the designing side of architecture. Both are potential
ways to be excellent scientists and support (mental and financial aid) is important in both
cases.
Engineering and Technology Grade C Male Up to 35
108
BME_15
Career Path:
Originally he had studied mathematics and engineering at the University, when he wrote an
essay for a competition and rather chose physics and science of heat. A teacher attracted his
attention and asked him to come to the Department of Energy Engineering. It wasn’t a
conscious decision, it just happened. He has been here since 1972.
His research projects are heat-physics, heat-conducts and especially the thermal
conductivities of different materials.
He gained his PhD degree relatively late because of his other projects and tasks.
When he became a university professor, it wasn’t necessary to possess a PhD, but over the
years he could realize how important it is, so he got it in 1996.
His plans are to go on in the scientific hierarchy and to write more scientific essays.
Current Position:
Now he is an associate professor. He says that he can’t see any difference between his old
job and his present higher position. He undertakes all the work he did before. He is occupied
in the educational and teaching staffs, which is a very time-consuming task. So that’s why he
tried to keep the balance between research, teaching and administration.
Access to resources:
Time and money are never enough, but if somebody plays his cards well, he can solve these
kinds of problems (with delaying the deadlines, competing etc.).
He thinks that administration and cooperation should be better at the University. His
department is a huge institute where people don’t know each other, so it is hard to organize
the cooperation. There are some well-tried groups and they don’t like working with anybody
else.
Publication:
He is dissatisfied with his publications owing to the large number of this work tasks. There is
not enough time to finish a job peacefully because of his other occupations. By all accounts
he believes that writing 1 or 2 articles a year is not enough. He advocates the principle that
„publish or parish”, which means, if you don’t have any publications, you are not a real and
important scientist. His opinion is that there is a new tendency in publication. Previously there
wasn’t such a big rivalry as nowadays, and today’s reviews may be still less insincere.
109
Work-life balance:
He has a wife and a son. In his opinion he wouldn’t have achieved anything, if his wife hadn’t
helped him over the years. Of course it demanded a lot of sacrifice and renunciation because
combining work and family is a very hard thing.
Critical areas:
It is not a typical thing to meet female professors or students in this Department but naturally
the exception proves the rule. The reason of this is that people think it is not a feminine
profession.
He claims that a female student who studies well attracts the attention sooner than a
boy. They have a different way of thinking but it could be successful as well. His opinion is
that some women would not do harm to the Department until the proportion can be kept
automatically.
Criteria of excellence:
He says the measure of success for a university professor is being the head of department. It
gives you respect and appreciation. After this you should go in for publication, science etc.
Natural sciences and Engineering and Technology Grade B Male 36-55
110
BME_16
Career path:
There were two reasons why he chose this profession. The first one is his father who worked
in the same business; the second is the fact that he has always been really interested in
mathematics. Getting into the University wasn’t a big problem for him. During his studies he
received some offers, but only accepted one of them after a one-year professional practice in
Germany. His PhD topic was geodetic measurements for 4 years.
Essentially he reached everything that he could and was possible. He was among
other things a senior lecturer, a dean, a president and an academician. While managing his
career he could concentrate on science as well. He had three different big projects: geodesy,
photogrammetry and informatics. He has always been searching for new challenges, in
which he threw himself with pleasure.
Publications:
He has written a number of articles to different Hungarian and foreign reviews. Nevertheless
he has published a few course books; and his works regarding plenty of Hungarian and
international conferences have been published.
Life-work balance, family:
He has two children, and his wife is a very well-educated woman with two degrees and she
still works. Combining family and work responsibilities is not a big question or problem for
them. Naturally, when the children were young there was a greater burden on his wife, but he
tried to help her in everything he could.
He has always tried to import the western practice and involve his family, especially
his wife, in his life, and when he could he took her partner as the rector’s wife with himself to
conferences, official journeys and receptions.
Critical areas:
During his rectorate he wrote a statistical analysis about the women who attend or work at
the university. The reason of this was not an act or the will to alter things but rather to follow
the western examples.
The statistics clearly showed the inequalities and the anomalies, which were typical of
each department. The same could be noticed among the teachers as well.
He thinks that the reason of female inequality is first of all the patriarchal society, which has
not changed yet over the years.
111
He does not make a difference between women and men, especially in diligence,
intelligence etc. There are differences only between given persons but not genders.
He knows that the current situation is not satisfying and an alteration is indispensable.
The key should be in a good scholarship-program, which advocates the talented women in
the beginning.
About success:
For him success does not belong to the ceremonious things. It is a success if somebody
loves his job or invents something new. He thinks that the reason why he could reach
everything in his life was very simple. He just wanted to work and do what he was good at.
Engineering and Technology Grade A Male Over 55
112