As a researcher, you have the opportunity to actively contribute to the promotion of equal opportunities and to initiate positive changes in the academic environment. Your position enables you to integrate gender equality perspectives into research, teaching and academic structures. Here are some suggestions on how you can utilise your impact.
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Expansion of expertise
Gender equality skills are important elements for modern science. (Gender) clichés and biases influence us all. By providing yourself with further training on gender and diversity topics and incorporating this knowledge into research, work organisation and teaching, you can promote an open and inclusive research and learning culture. In this way, you not only support the acquisition of expertise in your environment, but also help to ensure that equality is firmly anchored in research and teaching in the long term.
As a researcher, you can promote gender equality not only on an individual level, but also on a structural level. For example, you could encourage family-friendly working conditions in your team or pay attention to equality criteria when applying for funding. If you are represented on committees, share your experience and contribute suggestions to improve equal opportunities. In this way, you can help to initiate sustainable changes in the research community.
Networks strengthen exchange and support among researchers, especially for underrepresented groups. Invite researchers from marginalised groups to meetings, workshops or colloquia in order to include them into networks. By inviting them to guest lectures or joint projects, you can also promote researchers and make them visible as role models. In this way, you create a supportive environment that promotes diversity and equality.
In research teams, power dynamics often have an unconscious effect on work processes and results. Therefore, ensure that your research designs and methods are gender and diversity-conscious. For example, you can consider a balanced composition of the team or use gender-equitable survey instruments. By consciously taking these aspects into account, you create a scientific practice that is inclusive and representative - and at the same time increases the quality of the research.
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Image: Visual Generation - adobe.stock.com