Research and science
Gender, diversity, and equal opportunities in academic research
Researcher pipetting in the lab
Research on aspects of biological and social gender, individual and social diversity, and equal opportunities can make significant contributions to improve the individual and social quality of life and social coexistence.
Gender equality and diversity in research teams allows for different perspectives and can stimulate innovative questions and methodological approaches.
When preparing research projects, reflection on the relevance of gender and diversity aspects can make a crucial difference to the quality of many research approaches. It can lead to more differentiated, more meaningful, and consequently better research results — often including fields you would not think of immediately. For example, ample evidence for the relevance of gender- and diversity-based analyses comes from the fields of biology, medicine, pharmacy, nutritional sciences, computer science and robotics, technology, ecology, and applied science and engineering.
Image: Niklas Elmehed/Nobel Prize Outreach
Nobel Prize 2023 for gender economist Claudia GoldinExternal linkde
Claudia Goldin, US economist at Harvard, has been honored with the 2023 Nobel Prize in economic sciences. The US economist receives the Nobel Prize for the first contribution to income, participation and the analysis of the most important drivers of gender differences in the labor market.
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Structural development project "Gender in Focus" at the University of Jena (2024-2029)
The University of Jena sees the systematic examination of the relevance and the integration of gender and diversity aspects in research projects in disciplines areas as a quality feature of excellent science and part of good scientific practice. The resulting broadening and differentiation of the scientific perspective on the object of research contributes to an improvement in the precision and reliability of the results.gender
To promote this endeavour, the university successfully acquired the "Gender in Focus" project (2024-2029) in a two-stage BMBF competition entitled "Gender Aspects in Focus". In this project, structures will be developed and established at the university to support researchers from all disciplines in exchanging ideas on the topic and integrating relevant aspects of gender and diversity into their research in a profitable way
A total of approximately € 850,000 is available for this purpose.
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DFG launches new initiative for equal opportunities and diversity, DFG Press release No. 27
The DFG aims to further promote equal opportunities and diversity in academia at a number of levels. The aspect of diversity will now be included in their so-called Research-Oriented Equal Opportunities and Diversity Standards.
‘Diverse perspectives in research and the consideration of the experience and characteristics of all those working in science are key requirements for excellence,’ says DFG President Professor Dr Katja Becker.
In addition to promoting gender equality, the DFG’s Joint Committee's new equal opportunities and diversity concept aims to include more diversity aspects in its funding activities. In addition to gender and gender identity, their diversity concept now includes aspects such as ethnic origin, religion, other personal beliefs, and disability or chronic/long-term illnesses, as well as social origin and sexual orientation. Where one person combines several of these aspects (intersectionality), this will be taken into account. DFG members must also acknowledge their responsibility of protecting their staff and other persons from sexual harassment, discrimination, and bullying.
DFG Press Release Nr. 27External link
Text of the Research-Oriented Equality and Diversity StandardsExternal link
