Diverse perspectives from various scientific disciplines and from different people enrich our research and our lives. We believe that the diversity of our society should also be reflected in science. This includes, among other things, a balanced proportion of women and men – as symbolised here by junior researchers from our network, Juela Cufe (medical physics) and Lukas Rösner (biochemistry).
© Uni MS/Erk Wibberg

Gender equity in science: Support for women in our research network

One focus of our equal opportunity activities is to support the female scientists in our research network. In particular, we want to motivate junior female scientists to pursue an academic career, as women are still underrepresented in leadership positions in science and the relevant career decisions are usually made at an early stage. We also create opportunities for established female scientists when required and organise activities to purposefully help raise awareness of gender equity among all members of our community.

In the community of our Integrated Research Training Group, we strive for a balanced ratio of female and male doctoral researchers (as of April 2024: 47,5% female and 52,5% male doctoral researchers). Beyond the structured scientific training in our research field, an important aspect of our graduate programme is the mentoring of our PhD students by established scientists, who provide individual consultations and personal advice on their career development. Furthermore, project funding and research rotations support our early career researchers in the pursuit of their own research ideas and help pave their way to scientific independence. In the long term, these structures and measures are also intended to help increase the proportion of female project leaders in our network (as of April 2024: 28,6 % female and 71,4 % male project leaders) and in science as a whole.

Furthermore, in our network’s committees, we aim to achieve as balanced a gender ratio as possible. However, it is also important to us that even though female scientists are underrepresented in leadership positions, this fact should not result in an above-average burden of committee work as this would only create other disadvantages and impediments to their research work.

  • Soft skills and career development training

    We would like to encourage all female scientists in our network to take advantage of opportunities for career training. Our network is a partner in several cross-network programmes run by our University and its faculties. In addition, we organise workshops exclusively for the female scientists in our network – please get in touch with your individual requests and ideas!

    If needed, we also support the participation of our members in programmes run by external organisers, for example, the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (Deutscher Hochschulverband) – if you are interested, please send us an e-mail with the description of the desired training and the expected costs.

  • Women-in-Science Network Medicine Münster

    © Goldmarie Design & Uni MS Designservice

    A network for female researchers from all disciplines and career levels working in the field of biomedical research, with an interest in professional advancement and networking! Through this initiative, we join forces with other biomedical research networks and scientific centres at the University of Münster, the Equal Opportunities Officer and the Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Medicine to promote and combine equal opportunity activities in science generally and in medicine in particular.

  • Mentoring programme for female master’s students in mathematics and computer science

    In order to increase the proportion of female scientists in disciplines where women are underrepresented at the doctoral level, our network supports the MINT mentoring programme of the University of Münster’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. In groups consisting of several female master’s students and a female doctoral or postdoctoral mentor, participants exchange experiences and receive support planning their careers and developing their competencies and skills.