Genderation BeSt – Investigation of Gender Neutral and Gender Sensitive Academic Recruiting Strategies

Careers of women in science run along a gendered “leaky pipeline” (cf. European Commission 2001: 12). With each career level the percentage of women decreases. The German average of female professors currently reaches only about 20 % (cf. European Commission 2013: 90). On average, the percentage of female professors in EU-25 is 18 % (cf. European Commission 2013: 90). Recent studies about the marginalization of women in the German science system suggest that the under-representation of female scientists has to be analysed through deep insight of the scientific system and its structures in order to understand and explain the background. The main objective of “Genderation BeSt” was to analyse the habits and rules of appointment procedures at universities and to develop gender sensitive and gender neutral methods for assignment and personnel recruitment at German universities, especially in the fields of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET). The project “Genderation BeSt” was conducted in a cooperation between RWTH Aachen (IMA/ZLW & IfU) and the Technical University of Munich (Gender Studies in Science and Engineering) and funded by the ESF and the BMBF from December 2011 until February 2013. A first work package included qualitative interviews with members of appointment committees to evaluate which structural and cultural mechanisms exist and influence the proportion of female professors at German universities. Since the amount of external funding serves as an essential quality feature in appointment processes – particularly within STEM faculties –, the next step was to analyse whether and to what extent external funding calls of the leading German research institutions contribute to a gender asymmetry. This was achieved via text mining procedures and expert interviews. The investigations resulted in targeted recommendations to higher education, research institutions and science policy regarding gender-sensitive and gender-neutral appointment methods and recruitment strategies for the promoted appointment of women in academia.