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Liisa Husu

Position: Post Retirement Professor School/office: School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences

Email:

Phone: +46 19 303915

Room: F3121

Liisa Husu

About Liisa Husu

Liisa Husu is Senior Professor of Sociology, at the School of Humanities, Education and Social Science (HumES), Örebro University. She is an affiliated researcher and member of the GODESS Institute at the Department of Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics, Finland, and scientific advisory for the Chalmers University of Technology 10-year gender equality action GENIE.

Background

Liisa Husu is a Finnish sociologist and gender expert with a strong international engagement. She has previously been a board member of GEXcel Centre of Gender Excellence, one of the Swedish Centres of Gender Excellence, funded by the Swedish Research Council 2007-2011; Professor of Gender Studies at Örebro University 2011-2020, Guest Professor in Gender Studies at Örebro University 2009-2010, Guest Professor at Linköping University Tema Genus 2009-2011, and is Docent in Women’s Studies at Tampere University, Finland.

She received her PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Helsinki in 2001, is Docent of Women's Studies at Tampere University, Finland; and was awarded tin 2002 the Christina of the Year award by the University of Helsinki Christina Institute of Gender Studies, and the University of Helsinki Gender Equality Prize, the Maikki Friberg Prize, in 2009.

Liisa Husu was the Na­­tio­­nal Co-ordi­­na­­tor of Wo­­men’s Studies and se­­­­­­nior ad­­vi­­ser in the Fin­­nish gender equa­­­­l­­ity machi­­ne­­ry (Council for Equality between Women and Men and Equality Ombudsman’s Office) at the Prime Minister’s Office and Mi­­nist­­ry of So­­cial Af­­­­fairs and Health 1981-1996; re­­searcher in the Academy of Finland funded research project Gender in Academia 1997-2001 at the Department of Social Psychology, Uni­­versity of Helsinki; Re­­search Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Stu­­dies, University of Hel­­sinki 2002-2008, and Project Manager of NASTA - Women’s Leadership Research and Development Project, a national three-university project funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education, 2008-2010, at Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki.

Research interests

Liisa Husu's re­­search in­­te­­rests fo­­cus on gen­­der in scien­­ce, academia and knowledge production; espe­­­­­­cially on gen­­der dyna­­mics and in­­equa­­li­­ties in scien­­tific careers, organisations and scien­­ce po­­licy. She led the GEXcel research theme “Gender Paradoxes in Changing Academic and Scientific Organisation(s)”, and the Örebro part of the Swedish Research Council funded project on “Feminist Theorizings of Intersectionality, Transversal Dialogues and New Synergies”. In 2021-2023 she was engaged with international consortia in two Horizon2020 research projects related to gender in science and academia: GRANTeD and UniSAFE.

Ph.D. education and examination

Liisa Husu has examined ten Ph.D.s (in Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands and Sweden, in Sociology, Political Science, Education, and Gender Studies) and supervised seven doctoral students. She was Board Member of Intergender, the Swedish-International doctoral school in gender research.

Evaluation activities

Husu has been a member of the evaluation panel in the Uppsala University overall research evaluation Quality and Renewal  2006, as a "researcher on research" panel member in the Uppsala University overall research evaluation Quality and Renewal 2017, and in the international evaluation panel of Social Sciences of the Czech Academy of Sciences in 2015 and 2020.

She has been a reviewer for ERC; Elsevier New Scholar Programme; Swedish Institute of Development Aid grants (SIDA); Austrian Wissenschaftsfonds Wittgenstein award; Israel Science Foundation; the Science Foundation Ireland Institute Development Awards; assessor for the Irish Higher Education Agency Senior Academic Leadership Initiative; member in the evaluation committee of the MEERVOUD programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO, member of the jury of the European Women Inventor and Innovation Award 2009, and took part in the Swedish Council for Higher Education's assessment of gender equality projects in higher education, funded by DJ, the Delegationen för jämställdhet i högskolan (Committee for gender equality in higher education). In 2017, she conducted a gender equality review of the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences) research project funding processes.

Expert activities

Husu has functioned ex­­ten­­sively as a gender expert and ad­­vi­­ser for diverse research stakeholders in Nor­­dic count­­­­­­­­­­­­ries, Europe and internationally, including research funding organisations and Ministries, and has been actively in­­vol­­­­­­ved in de­­­­­­ve­­­­­­­­­­loping gender app­­roaches in uni­­ver­­si­­ties and re­­search policy since the early 1980s in ma­­ny roles and contexts.

She has served as the Vice-Chair and member of the University of Helsinki Equality Committee, and was a member of Örebro University Equality Committee 2010-2018 (Committee discontinued in 2018). She was member of the board of NIKK, Nordic Gender Institute, funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, 1995-2000, and the Chair of its first board 1995-1996.

She was a member of the Swedish Ministry of Education advisory group on gender and gender equality in European research policy, set up in 2017.  June 2017-October 2018 she served as a member of the Board of the Tampere University Foundation (Finland) which led the merger of the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology into a new foundation university which started in January 2019.

She is member of the scientific advisory board of CIEG, the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studes at Lisbon University, Portugal (2023-),  is scientific adviser of Chalmers University of Technology ten-year gender initiative for excellence GENIE since 2018, and was a member of the External Advisory Group for Lund University Science Faculty on gender and diversity 2020-2022.

International engagements

Liisa Husu has lectured and given invited presentations in over thirty countries, in Australia, Canada, China, European countries, Latin America, Morocco, South Africa, and USA.

International engagements  include a keynote presentation in the Japanese-American-Scandinavian forum on gender in science in Washington D.C. in 2009; at the UNCTAD multi-year expert meeting on enterprise development and capacity building in science, technology and innovation in 2011; in the EC Social Dialogue, Committee on Education in 2012; at the European Conference of Women University Rectors in Istanbul in 2014; at the International Conference on Gender and Higher Education in Europe in University of Lund, Sweden in 2014, and in the Gender Panel of the Second African Ministerial Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation in Rabat, Morocco in 2014. Husu has  been a long-term member of the International Sociological Association Research Committee 32 (Women in Society) and has served two terms in its board, and was appointed in 2018 to the board of International Sociological Association Research Committee 23, Sociology of Science and Technology.

European engagements

Liisa Husu has played an active role in European actions and research development on gender and science and is member, earlier PI, of the Örebro team in the H2020 research project GRANTeD (2019-2023) on gender and research funding. She was a partner in a major European FP7 project GenPORT that was pooling and organising extensive gender and science resources to an interactive portal; researcher in the EU FP7 project genSET, a capacity building action project on gender equality and excellence in science; a partner in the EU FP6 research pro­­­­ject PRO­­ME­­TEA on empowering wo­­men in technological re­­search ca­­reers; a partner in the EU FP6 pro­­ject ADVANCE on promo­­ting wo­­men’s scien­­tific careers; and is a member of the COST action Gender STE. She contributed to the EC re­­port Gen­­der and Excel­­lence in the Making (2004),  was the Rap­­­­porteur of the EC ex­­pert group Gen­­der and Ex­­cel­­len­­ce (The Gender Challenge in Research Funding, 2009) reviewing research funding from gender perspective in 33 countries and a member of the EC expert group on impact of COVID-19 on gender equality in research and innovation (2022-2023). She was a member of the steering group of the European conference on gender in research and innovation  organised by the Finnish EU Presidency in October 2019. 

Husu has been the moderator of the European Network on Gender Equality in Higher Education, and its email list eq-uni since 1998, and has contributed to organising eleven European Conferences on Gender Equality in Higher Education. She was a founding mem­­ber of the European Platform of Women Scien­­tists EPWS and long-term member of its board, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Women Rectors Association EWORA.   

Publications

Her publica­­tions include Hard Work in the Academy. Research and Inter­­ventions on Gen­­der In­­equalities in Higher Education (1999), the special issue on Aca­­de­­me and Gender of UNES­­CO/CEPES jour­­nal Higher Education in Europe (2000), Se­­xism, Support and Sur­­vival in Academia: Academic Wo­­men and Hidden Discrimi­­na­­tion in Finland (2001), Tiede, tieto ja sukupuoli [Science, Knowledge and Gender] (2005), Dold diskriminering på aka­­de­­miska arenor – osynligt, synligt, subtilt [Hidden discrimination on academic arenas – invisible, visible, subtle] (2005); Leadership through the Gender Lens (2010),  Women, Management and Leadership (2011), and a special issue on Feminist Encounters in Research and Innovation of the journal Feminist Encounters, as well as many journal articles and chapters in books. In 2013 she was among the invited researchers writing in Nature on”Scientists of the world speak up for equality”.

Interviews and media outreach

There is no quick fix for gender equality  Interview by Robert Karlsson, Chalmers University of Technology) April 4, 2019

Så kan forskningsfinansiärer bidra till jämlikhet  Interview by Michael Nyhaga at Riksbankens Jubileumsfond web June 20, 2018

Om en forskningsfinansiär - "Jämställdhet är en fråga om kvalitet" Interview by Charlie Olofsson for genus.gu.se, December 20, 2018

Equality targets futile without incentives Interview by Carin Mannberg-Zaccari, Curie, web journal of Swedish RC,  2017

 Miljonsatsning på jämställd högskola misslyckades Interview by Hugo Lindqvist, Dagens Nyheter, 14 March 2015

 

 

Publications

Articles in journals |  Articles, reviews/surveys |  Books |  Chapters in books |  Collections (editor) |  Conference papers |  Conference proceedings (editor) |  Reports | 

Articles in journals

Articles, reviews/surveys

Books

Chapters in books

Collections (editor)

Conference papers

Conference proceedings (editor)

Reports