“We have reached a tipping point,” says KTH Vice President Anna Wahl. “No one is asking ‘why’ anymore. People are mainly onboard and saying, ‘yes, let’s do this.’”

For nearly a decade KTH has been implementing long-term change programmes aimed at meeting the Swedish government’s policy to realize a gender equal society. In addition to pushing toward institutional transformation, the university is breaking ground among its European counterparts in the area of gender education.

Wahl says that by the 2022 academic year, a research-based gender equality and diversity education module will have been integrated into mandatory coursework in each of the nearly 120 programmes at KTH, from bachelor to PhD levels.

At the same time, demand for elective gender courses has also risen sharply. Enrollment doubled in at least two separate elective courses this term, she says. Meanwhile, integrating the mandatory curriculum is progressing swiftly with little of the skepticism that has met gender initiatives in previous years.

Wahl credits the personal advocacy of KTH President Sigbritt Karlsson (one of the world’s relatively few female university leaders) for much of the recent years’ progress. She also points to KTH’s alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which have provided a useful framework for understanding how gender issues fit into technology and engineering education.