The Center for Civic Education (CCE) expressed concern that in the process of selecting new regular, associate and foreign members of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU), which will be completed at the session of the Assembly of the CANU on December 23, "there are elements of non-transparency and discrimination."
The coordinator of the Active Citizenship program at CCE, Sara Čabarkapa, said that insight into the documentation of candidates applying for membership, which CANU provided to that NGO upon a request for free access to information, emphasizes the need for the public to be more fully informed about the course and criteria of that process.
"Article 1 of the Decision on the Call for Elections for Associate, Regular and Foreign Members of CANU of December 23, 2024 states that elections are being called for nine associate members, three from the Department of Natural Sciences, two from the Department of Social Sciences, two from the Department of Humanities and two from the Department of Arts. However, it is evident from the documentation that in some departments a smaller number of candidates received the support of the departments than the number envisaged by the competition, and certain dissatisfaction with this outcome was recorded in the minutes of the sessions at which decisions were made on the candidates," the statement reads.
A special question, says Čabarkapa, is why "some qualified candidates were prevented from further stages of this competition."
"Out of a total of ten candidates for associate members, only three are women, all three from the Department of Humanities, which proposed five candidates, and it is possible that a maximum of two will be elected. This data is particularly worrying considering that in one of the departments, the only female candidate, despite relevant and international references, did not receive a sufficient number of votes, even though that department proposed only one candidate out of a possible two, a man with far more modest references," he adds.
CCE points out that currently, according to information on the CANU website, out of 29 regular members, "as many as 27 are men", which means that men make up 93 percent of CANU's regular membership. Out of eight associate members, seven are men and one is a woman, meaning that 87,5 percent of CANU's associate membership is men.
"The dramatic gender imbalance in the composition of CANU not only indicates potential gender discrimination, but also sends a discouraging message to female scientists and artists that their chances of one day becoming part of the highest state scientific institution are many times lower than their male colleagues," says Čabarkapa.
She said that Montenegro, as a small country, must pay particular attention to the development and preservation of its human capital, especially in the fields of science and art.
"CANU has been exposed to justified criticism for a long time for its silence and passivity regarding important social processes, as well as for questioning the appropriateness of such activities financed from the Budget. Therefore, it is essential that the procedures for selecting new members are fully transparent and based exclusively on professional and scientific references," she added.
Čabarkapa states that on November 21, CANU published on its website a list of candidates who will be decided on at the session on December 23, but that "this is not accompanied by information about the selection process, as well as the biographies and scientific references of these candidates."
"CANU is expected to be a role model for all state institutions when it comes to meritocracy, gender equality and respect for democratic values. Its role in Montenegrin society should also be emancipatory. Science and art must be a space in which there is no place for discrimination on any grounds, and the process of selecting CANU members must be public and transparent, in order to eliminate suspicions that preference is given to candidates based on political, personal or friendly connections," the statement reads.
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