Gender Equality
LMU Munich currently extended its measures on gender equality as part of the comprehensive diversity management strategy Equality and Inclusion aiming for family friendliness, and diversity.
Beyond university- and faculty-wide measures, the RTG adopts a large number of specific measures to create a gender-friendly program. Several events and formats were offered to female (and male) doctoral researchers:
In December 2016 all RTG students participated in a workshop on “Team Building”, accompanied by individual coaching sessions for the female doctoral researchers that focused on career planning and organization of the daily work reality.
Since the second funding year, RTG 2175 resources were combined with the GSNLMU and the CRC 870 to form a Gender Committee which planned and organized different events focusing on gender related issues in the perception and evaluation of scientific excellence, as well on gender perspective in research. Students and PIs were invited regularly to gather to open meetings and to discuss diversity and equality related issues.
In fall 2017, RTG 2175 and GSNLMU jointly hosted a mini-symposium with two keynote speakers on the topics “Gendered Innovations” (Londa Schiebinger) and on “Recruitment Processes in Academia
as Tournaments: When Gender counts” (Thomas Hinz). Participants were also invited to contribute to open discussions in round tables on gender related topics as were “Family life and science compatibility”,
“Female role models in science”, sexual harassment”.
In 2019 RTG 2175 designed and started the “Neuro.gender Awareness Campaign” focusing on different topics from “Dual career couples”, “Women and science” to “Self-marketing for women”, split into 10 to 13 online posts via email to students and PIs (www.neuro,gender.bio.lmu.de). As a first step leading up to the campaign, an anonymous online survey on issues related to gender and equality was created, to which 133 members of the RTG 2175 and GSNLMU programs responded.
The results of this survey showed that approximately 70% of respondents recognized the problem of inequality between men and women in science and 75% could understand such concerns, even if they did not share them personally.
In Fall 2019 RTG 2175 and GSNLMU jointly hosted a talk on “Where sex happens in the brain” with the neuroscientists Margaret McCarthy followed by an open discussion platform.
Furthermore, all female students of the RTG are regularly encouraged to participate to individual coaching sessions. Interested students could choose among different topics such as “Your convincing CV, letter of motivation, etc.”, “Definition of objectives for your professional
future, identification of your skills”, "How do I appear convincing?", “Selfmarketing”.
