Women on top

19 December 2025

Especially the Rotterdam School of Management and the Erasmus School of Economics, the two largest faculties at campus Woudestein, have a terrible record. The situation is slightly better at ESL, ESHCC, ISS and ESHPM. An attempt by the Ministry of Education to get more women to be promoted to professors, the so-called Westerdijk funds, resulted in disaster at EUR: of the nine positions available, only four were filled.

The numbers

New figures about the number of female professors appear about once a year. While their share used to stay constantly around 10 percent for years, it seems that some progress has finally been made in the past two years. About time, since the university only has a few months remaining to reach this self-imposed goal.

‘EUR will not achieve target regarding female professors’
Gepubliceerd op: 13 December 2018
- Diversity

ESE and RSM have the lowest number of female professors
Gepubliceerd op: 14 June 2018
- Diversity

Explanations

Why are there fewer women professors at Erasmus University than in, for example, traditional masculine strongholds such as the technical universities in Delft and Eindhoven? And why does it seem to be so difficult to do anything about it? The answer to that question is complex, so very complex that a PhD student will try to formulate that answer throughout her entire PhD. Former RSM dean Steef van de Velde has his own view on it, and the previous chief diversity officer Hanneke Takkenberg saw herself as a modern day Don Quixote.

And then there are the official plans.

This is what EUR will do to close its huge gender gap
Gepubliceerd op: 15 December 2016
- Diversity

This PhD candidate is researching why the number of female professors is lagging behind
Gepubliceerd op: 17 May 2019
- Research

‘We are all chasing the same women’
Gepubliceerd op: 18 April 2018
- Diversity

‘The problem lies with all of us, not just with white males’
Gepubliceerd op: 8 March 2016
- Diversity

Westerdijk fiasco

The Westerdijk plan was devised by the previous minister of Education, Jet Bussemaker. The thought was: through a financial incentive, we are raising the embarrassingly low percentage of female professors nationwide. Unfortunately, the incentive (€ 50,000 per position) turned out to be insufficient to convince the Rotterdam faculties: only four of the nine positions available were filled. A quarter of a million euros was wasted.