"Excellence" - a tough cookie!

The perceptions of excellence permeate all aspects of the working life and it is important to understand how. The concept of excellence is used formally at all levels to decide who gets a position, but it is also used informally and subconsciously to decide who gets the larger office; who is invited to discuss the strategic research plans with the head professor; who gets responsibility for the most prestigious courses; who organizes the staff parties; who is nominated to which committees and deciding bodies etc.

We assume that the construction and evaluation of excellence, the composition of the appointment committee and the design of the appointment process, influence the structure and culture of the university. The aim is to identify entry points of disadvantage based on certain personal characteristics and to develop appropriate preventive measures.

Hidden assumptions can contribute to defining excellence in the institutional context, and the gendered and ungendered consequences of these assumptions. The goal is to give pregnant examples to forward, the current discussion of the gendered effects of how science is done in the very fundamental level, and how these effects can be counteracted. In particular these stories will show how gendered conception of excellence influence the recruitment of academic staff and how such effects can be counteracted by introducing more neutral criteria based on fundamental values which are less tainted by gendered exceptions.