Gabriele Griffin, Professor Emerita, reflects on her time at the Centre for Gender Research

Researcher profile

Porträttbild på Gabriele Griffin

Gabriele Griffin / Photo: Joelin Quigley Berg

At the end of September this year, Gabriele Griffin, the Centre for Gender Research’s and Uppsala University’s first Professor in Gender Studies, retired and became Professor Emerita. Gabriele Griffin has been a strong and vital presence at the Centre since 2016, with many diverse research projects, successful funding applications, and research publications to her name. But most of all, she has been an engaged, supportive, and much appreciated colleague. Here are her own thoughts and reflections on her time at the Centre for Gender Research.

I have had a really good time at the Centre for Gender Research, and hope to continue this, even in the different form of having become Professor Emerita (which, according to Centre staff who researched this extensively, means being a small crustacean... one lives and learns).

When I arrived in January 2016 the Centre had already existed for a considerable number of years in different forms, and it had a strong ethos of enabling a range of research and supporting very divergent projects. This was something I wholeheartedly endorsed, not least because there is so much wonderful gender research that can be done. It was therefore great to get the new PhD programme in place in 2017 and to start the consolidation and expansion of the Centre, a process which depended on the collaboration, enthusiasm, hard work and dedication of all its staff and students. This process has been one of the great achievements of all of us during the past years, and I have very much enjoyed being part of it.

We have also begun to reap the fruits of this process with the graduation of the first PhD students within our own PhD programme, the successful completion of various quality assurance events (e.g. Quality and Renewal 2017; 2024, the evaluation of the PhD programme), the acquisition of and participation in funded PhD schools (WOMHER, GENHDI, FUDEM, SIDA), the expansion of permanent staff, including four professors, and our many collaborations both inside and outside of the University.

We have also seen some challenging times, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, which changed, and continues to impact on, all our professional lives in various ways. We have lost colleagues: Generosa Cossa, a PhD student who passed away shortly before her 60% seminar, and our HR generalist, Camilla Dahlbom. Both these deaths were terrible blows to us at the Centre.

At 67 I'm happy to become Professor Emerita. I have worked in higher education since I was 21, and I think it's a good idea to retire when you are still energetic and full of ideas. I don't want to model the idea that work is everything in life, and I also do not want to block a chair that a younger professor can occupy. I think it's important to recognise that we all have a sell-by date, and that – luckily! – institutions including our Centre, will continue long after we have departed.

Having said that, I will, of course, continue to be around for some time – I still have PhD students to see out and lots of writing to do, but I also look forward to more life outside of academe, and having holidays at times of the year when everybody else is sitting in meetings and working away.

The Centre, I'm sure, will flourish – it is full of delightful, talented people. Gender research continues to be hugely necessary, not least as we contemplate the current political scene with its rising far-right tendencies, its instabilities and wars, and its foreclosing of certain horizons. These need to be engaged with and challenged, and gender research contributes to this.

Altogether, it has been a wonderful, rich time at the Centre – and I hope that all my colleagues experience the Centre in the same way!

During her time at the Centre, Gabriele Griffin has been involved in many diverse research projects, grant applications, collaborations, workshops and more.

  • Nordforsk Centre of Excellence, Nordwit, 2017-2022
    A research centre fostering research on women in technology-driven professions. In collaboration with partners from the Western Norway Research Institute and the University of Tampere.
  • Gender Mainstreaming: Developing Competencies in Higher Education for Gender Equality, Peace-building and Gender-Sensitive Research Coordinators, 2017-2022
    This was a 5-year project with funding from SIDA to undertake gender mainstreaming in Mozambique and to support PhDs from there doing gender research. In collaboration with partners from Mozambique and the University of the Free State, South Africa.
  • Routes to Reconstruction, 2017
    A Riksbanken Jubileumsfond-funded workshop dealing with genital modification.
  • Female entrepreneurship and decent work, 2018-2020
    A Vinnova-funded project, in collaboration with Sophia Renemar, a social entrepreneur, and Anneli Häyrén, on female entrepreneurship and decent work. In February 2020 they also received funding from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for a workshop on ‘Rethinking Research and Innovation: How Does Gender Matter?’
  • Quantifying Culture: AI and Heritage Collections, 2021-2025
    A research project together with Anna Foka and Fredrik Wahlberg that focuses on examining the current applications of AI in cultural heritage and exploring its future potential. Funded by WASP-HS.
  • Motivations for undertaking PhD research in low-income countries,
    A Democracy and Higher Education-funded project to look at motivations for undertaking PhD research in low-income countries.
  • Gender, Humanities and Digital Culture (GENHDI) research school, 2022-2025
    The Swedish Research Council-funded GENHDI research school explores how gender matters in digital cultural and academic contexts, and teaches digital methods and research skills fit for the labour market of the 21st century, while also strengthening gender humanities research.
  • AI, Gender and Inclusive Work, 2024
    A PhD school on 'AI, Gender and Inclusive Work' funded by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung at the Waizenbaum Institute in Berlin.
  • Genital Trouble, 2024
    A Riksbanken Jubileumsfond-funded international workshop on 'Genital Trouble'. Coordinated together with Maja Bodin, Malin Jordal and Jessica Påfs.

  • Part of the management team and co-supervising a PhD student within WOMHER.
  • Board member at the Digital Humanities Forum during the time it was transformed into the Centre for Digital Humanities.
  • Director of Graduate Studies at the Centre for Gender Research (two separate terms).
  • Coordinator of the GENHDI research school 2022-2024.
  • Initiator and coordinator, together with Jenny Björklund, of the interdisciplinary research group 'Technologization of the Everyday'.
  • Assessor or chair of panels for many international research councils including the Academy of Finland, the Irish Research Council, the Czech Science Foundation, etc.
  • Visiting professor at the London School of Economics, and at Åbo Akademi.
  • Extraordinary Professor in Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State, South Africa.
  • Involved in a number of appointment panels for professors in gender studies/gender research, and in promotion panels, at various Swedish and international universities.

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