Page 90 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

88 CHAPTER 4
candidates and decide on the preferred candidate. Next, they write an appointment report, which is an advice to the faculty board. Then, the faculty board decides on the final appointment.
In the Slovenian SSH department, the Scientific Council of the Institute serves as the selection committee for research fellows (equivalent of assistant professor). These positions fall under the promotion system in which candidates who meet the official criteria are promoted, but candidates who do not meet the criteria are rejected. In the Slovenian STEM department the procedure for recruiting and selecting assistant professors is slightly different. After candidates have submitted their applications, the secretary of the human resources office and the secretary of the department review the candidates’ CVs. The candidates who do not meet the official criteria are rejected, while others are invited to an interview with the committee members. The selection committee should consist of three members, one of which from an institution outside the university. Usually the members from the faculty are the associate dean or/and the head of the departmental chair and a retired professor.
In Switzerland, it is obligatory to publish assistant professor jobs on the university website. University policy insists on formal recruitment procedures. Selection criteria are explicitly left up to the employing faculty / department to determine, according to their teaching and/or research needs. For the assistant professor position the committee is composed of up to six persons (with one or two external members). During the procedure, an “equality delegate” is present to observe the selection process, with the aim of sustaining equality. The committee members interview the short-listed candidates and make a ranking of candidates. The Faculty Councils are free to follow the recommendations of the selection committee or to propose a new ranking of the short-listed candidates. In turn, the Rectors’ Office is entitled to follow the vote of the Faculty Council, or not.
We recognize the differences in career systems and recruitment and selection practices in the countries we study. Yet, when it comes to the gender practices, we found remarkable similarities across the various institutions and contexts that will be discussed in the next section.
4.5 Findings
In this section, we present the gender practices in the evaluation of men and women candidates that we identified throughout the STEM and SSH departments in six European higher education institutions on the basis of the interviews and focus