since the s the nordic countries have implemented a variety of different types of measures aimed at improving the gender balance in academia gender equality measures have been implemented within the education and research sectors in national research councils and at universities university colleges and independent research institutes these measures have focused on improving the gender balance in specific subject areas position categories and institutions or in academia and the research sector in general first statistics on education and research in the nordic region have been broken down by gender since the s and even earlier in some countries which has been crucial for developing adequate data on the gender equality measures in academia