20 women-only professorships will be advertised across the country.
Third level institutions have been given the go ahead to advertise 20 women-only professorships.
Athlone IT and IT Carlow will both advertise for one position each.
Currently over three quarters of professors in Ireland are men.
The posts are in areas such as physics, computer science and engineering.
Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O'Connor says the move is needed to achieve gender balance: