“This is a very pleasing result that reflects our ongoing efforts to improve gender equality in research and teaching,” says Professor Irmgard Förster, Vice Rector for Equal Opportunity and Diversity. “At the same time, we can see that we still have work to do in terms of appointing women to W2 and W3 professorships. But the successes we’ve enjoyed over the past few years show that we’re making good progress.”
The long-term trend at the University of Bonn is clearly heading in the right direction, with the percentage of female professors having been increased significantly as part of its Excellence Strategy. Taking all professorships into consideration, i.e. including assistant professorships (W1), this has risen from around 21 percent in 2019 to its current level of around 30 percent. “This progress sends out an important signal and is the product of some targeted measures to support female researchers,” Professor Förster explains. “We’re going to stick rigorously to the course we’ve set ourselves.”
“The results of the CEWS University Rankings serve to reaffirm the University’s strengths in promoting women researchers and the progress it’s made in this area,“ agrees University Central Gender Equality Officer Gabriele Alonso Rodriguez. “But the fact that we still have some improving to do when it comes to our percentage of female professors also shows that embedding gender equality in our careers here remains the main challenge. And it’s precisely this that we’ll be focusing our next steps on, improving the compatibility of family and career and working to bring in transparent, gender-sensitive appointment procedures.”
Published every two years since 2003, the CEWS rankings have grown to become a key tool for quality assurance in gender equality policy. For the latest set, the methodology used has been fine-tuned in order to better incorporate changes in the gender equality policy debate and the gender distribution in higher education.
The full rankings can be viewed here.
Press contact
Vice Rectorate for Equal Opportunity and Diversity
prorektorat.chancengerechtigkeit@uni-bonn.de
+49 228 73-5065