See the full list of top women-led universities
Data shows women hold vice-chancellor or equivalent positions at 51 of the world’s top 200 universities times higher education show.
There are three more female leaders in this role compared to last year, and an increase of 23 compared to 2015. The When we first started collecting data, it showed an 82 percent increase over nine years.
The United States is the country with the highest number of female leaders on the list. This list is The World University Rankings 2024 – As of February 1, Post’s position has dropped from 16th to 15th, but there is a further 5 leaders across Europe.
Since Deborah Prentice took the helm at Cambridge University in July 2023, the UK has had nine leaders, up from eight last year.
Sweden doubled the number of female leaders in the top 200 from one to two, and the Netherlands increased from five to six. She has one of Italy’s top 200 female leaders. Sapienza University of Rome placed her in the top 200, although previously she was ranked 201-250.
Finland, Ireland and New Zealand each have one university in the top 200, all of which are led by women.
Two female leaders have lost their jobs in the United States in recent months in high-profile circumstances.
Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s second woman and first black president, resigned in January amid accusations of plagiarism and criticism of her appearance at a Congressional hearing on anti-Semitism. Professor Gay’s tenure as president lasted just six months, the shortest in Harvard’s 388-year history.
Elizabeth McGill, the former president of the University of Pennsylvania, also appeared at the hearing, but resigned in December after appearing to sidestep questions about whether students who called for the genocide of Jews violated the university’s code of conduct. She led the university for just 18 months.
Professor Gay and Professor McGill were both replaced by men, Interim President Alan Garber and Larry Jameson, respectively.
The United States has a total of 56 universities in the top 200, and 27% of major universities are run by women. More than a third (36 per cent) of the UK’s top universities are led by women, and 55 per cent of the Netherlands’ top 11 universities have female university presidents.
Germany has consistently had strong female leadership, with six of the top 21 universities (29%) led by women this year.
A spokesperson for Humboldt University Berlin, which currently has its third female leader, said that at Germany’s public universities, “promotions are strictly regulated by law” and “women and equal opportunity officials are closely regulated by law.” must be involved in the process.”
These police officers are “called upon to act as a kind of governing body to take structural and individual measures against discrimination against women,” she explained.
Simonetta Manfredi, Professor of Equality and Diversity Management at Oxford Brookes University, has been researching gender equality in higher education for decades and believes there can be bias in the recruitment process for university presidents. He called on universities to introduce recruitment targets for university presidents. About a female vice president.
“If you think about it, goals are used all the time in higher education, and indeed in other types of organizations. There are student recruitment goals and all kinds of goals. So if equality is to be taken seriously, , I see no reason why we shouldn’t take advantage of equality in that area as well,” she said.
Top 10 Women-Led Universities in 2024
Note: This analysis is based on University Leaders in the post February 1, 2024, and includes 201 institutions as three universities tied for 199th place.