Welcome!

This course deals with biases in our assessments and how we can avoid them. The term bias describes a systematic skewing that takes place in for example assessment processes that regularly disadvantages certain groups. While an academic career is often perceived and described as something achieved on merit alone, in practice a great deal of scientific production is collaborative. This makes it essential for the individual to be invited to participate in ongoing research projects and to be ‘adopted’ into the collegial community if they are to remain in academia and make a career for themselves. In reality, a career is dependent on being identified, assessed and recruited by someone else.

As one of the world’s foremost medical universities, Karolinska Institutet (KI) is required to focus on quality and take advantage of the full potential of our employees. One important element of this is systematic continuous improvement aimed at eliminating bias in our assessment processes. KI must be an attractive, competitive employer that is able to both attract and retain staff irrespective of gender and background.

Target group

This course is intended for anyone involved in assessment and recruitment processes: managers recruiting new staff, members of assessment panels, appointment committees or doctoral committees, external experts or anyone else working with recruitment and assessment processes, including administrative staff.

Purpose

On completing the course, you should be able to work actively to counteract bias in assessment processes.

Course structure

The course consists of four modules. The first three modules look at the nature of bias, how it is manifested in an assessment process and aspects external to but affecting the assessment process, including a test to assess your own personal biases. Each of the first three modules concludes with a brief quiz to refresh the memory about the issues covered in the module. The fourth and final module lists the tools available to us when we work to counteract bias. The course deals with assessments of both appointments and resource allocation. The course takes between one and two hours to complete. There is a considerable body of scientific research demonstrating how bias arises in assessment processes and how it can be combated, much of which focuses on gender-related bias. The course therefore includes an overview of bias and gender. In many cases, the results obtained in these studies can also be applied to bias that disadvantages other groups, such as bias based on ethnicity. The toolbox and methods presented in the course are intended to promote objective assessments, thereby countering various forms of bias. References to the research on which the course is based are presented during each module, with a compiled reference list of all literature provided at the end of the course.

The course has been commissioned by the Committees for Research, Doctoral Education and Higher Education at Karolinska Institutet. In the video above, former vice-dean of doctoral education and now vice-president Professor Anders Gustafsson explains the background to the course, which was created in 2019 and updated in 2022 by Klara Regnö, PhD, senior lecturer and gender-equality strategist, together with communications officer Viktoria Olausson. Please contact Kristina Ullgren if you have any questions about the course.

Time to take the course!