University of Jena launches "Gender in Focus" project

The "Gender in Focus" project was launched at the University of Jena with a kick-off event at the Thuringian University and State Library on 29 January 2025. The aim of this project, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), is to systematically and sustainably take sex- and gender-related aspects into account in research at Friedrich Schiller University.

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing awareness in the field of Medicine that the differences between female and male patients, which have been neglected or overlooked in research methodology to date, can have an enormous impact on insights into the course of diseases and the success in the development of effective drugs and therapies. A prominent example of this is the discovery of different symptoms of heart attacks in men and women.

However, other research areas are also increasingly recognising the importance of considering aspects of socio-cultural gender roles and biological sex for the improvement of the quality of research and the relevance of these new perspectives for those who are to benefit from research results.

With the "Gender in Focus" funding guideline, the BMBF has responded to current developments in this (subject) area of research. The project at the University of Jena is one of a total of twelve projects funded nationwide in the BMBF funding guideline "Gender Aspects in Focus". It was successful in the concept phase against more than 30 competitors and is now being funded for five years with around 850,000 euros.

Networking, promoting and supporting

As a structural development project, "Gender in Focus" has set itself the task of providing information on the potential relevance of sex- and gender-related aspects in all research areas at the University of Jena. To this end, existing sex- and gender-sensitive research projects at the University of Jena are being networked with each other and contacts are being established with experts who already have experience in sex and gender-related research. Interested researchers can then discuss successful examples from research practice with these experts and colleagues and develop ideas for new impulses. During the kick-off event, Jena experts Ivonne Löffler (Medicine), Victoria Hegner (Cultural Studies) and Oliver Werz (Pharmacology) have already given an informative insight into this research practice in their presentations. In the summer semester 2025, the "In Focus" event series will be launched, in which scientists from Jena will present their research projects with a sex and gender reference, and external experts will also report on the current state of sex and gender research.

In addition, an information portal is being created with a detailed overview of the consideration of sex and gender in research to date and a database with further links to funding and counselling institutions as well as helpful tutorials for researchers.

Another focus of the project work is the active promotion and support of advisory services for sex- and gender-sensitive research projects. Employees of the research-supporting units (Vice President's Office for Research and Innovation, Service Centre for Research and Transfer, Graduate Academy, Competence Centre for Digital Research) and researchers attend workshops and training course to learn how sex and gender aspects can be integrated into research projects. Funding funds and awards are also available for the concrete development and advancement of research projects.

Such changes in research paradigms have also changed the way research funding and policy is viewed: Funding bodies, such as the German Research Foundation and, above all, the EU funding institutions, now expect a positioning of the extent to which aspects of sex and gender play a role in the projects when research projects are applied for. The "Gender in Focus" project addresses this challenge and supports the implementation of a sex- and gender-sensitive research strategy at the University of Jena.