• Shutterstock © LightField Studios

    12.03.2024

    Professorinnenprogramm 2030: 5 Berlin universities selected

HU Berlin, TU Berlin, ASH Berlin, BHT and HfS Ernst Busch – these Berlin universities have been selected for funding in the first round of the Joint Science Conference’s (GWK) Professorinnenprogramm 2030 (Women Professors Programme 2030). The TU Berlin also received the title “University with strong gender equality”.

108 universities applied, 92 were selected by the GWK on 22 February. From Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zur Berlin, the Technische Universität Berlin, the Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin, the Berliner Hochschule für Technik and the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts impressed the jury with their gender equality concepts. Until the end of September 2025, they can submit applications for up to three start-up grants for the initial appointment of women to permanent W2 or W3 professorships. TU Berlin was also awarded the title “University with strong gender equality”, which was awarded to 22 German universities for the first time this year. This gives it the opportunity to support an additional position for a young female scientist, which should lead to a permanent professorship.

The Women Professors Programme 2030 was adopted by the GWK in November 2022. It was launched by the Federal and State governments in 2008. The aim of the funding programme is to increase dynamically the number of female professors towards parity, to promote (junior) female scientists and artists on the path to a lifetime professorship and to retain them in academia, and to anchor gender equality even more firmly in the structure of universities. The Federal and State governments are making a total of 320 million euros available for the Women Professors Programme 2030 over an extended initial period of eight years. The funding programme thus gives the selected universities more time to appoint women to professorships and further modernise their gender policies.

Although, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis, link in German only), Berlin is in a leading position nationwide with around 36 per cent of full-time women professors and well above the national average of around 28 per cent, women university professors are still significantly underrepresented in the academic landscape. It can still be seen: The higher the rung on the career ladder, the smaller the proportion of women. (vdo)

More Stories