Equal Opportunities

Shaping Diversity

Our university is certified

Our Universität zu Lübeck has been audited and commended with the “Shaping Diversity” certificate. For this, the Association of Sponsors for the Promotion of Science in Germany invited university representatives to Berlin on 20 February 2019. The conditions for certification were to develop a strategy on diversity at the university and define concrete measures to foster diversity.

By participating in this audit, the university has paved new paths since 2016. Its own goal was and is to establish diversity as a sustained sphere of activity. At the university level, this means adapting the conditions for studies to the diversity among students and employees. As explained by Dr Jonathan Kohlrausch, who headed the audit, the aim is to ensure that each person has a fair chance at the university to achieve her/his potential in studies, professions and careers.

Further Impetuses

For this audit, our university emphasised other issues like accessibility for the disabled, defining profiles, internationalisation, fairness in education, family and internal communications. The steering and project groups devised and implemented diverse actions on these issues. For example, a Diversity Profile
was created and approved by the Executive Board in May 2018. Since October 2018, the
Accessibility for the Disabled
portal has been gathering considerable information on this issue and inclusion at the university. Even the currently ongoing
Interviews on Accessibility for the Disabled
resulted from the audit, and are aimed at generating impetuses for more measures.

Kohlrausch said, “Many thanks to all those who took part! The greatest success factors for this audit were the interdisciplinary cooperation and open mindedness.”

Our University President, Gabriele Gillessen-Kaesbach, added, “Many employees and students worked for almost two years on this project discussing diversity. Moreover, we have developed a diversity strategy that will guide us over the years ahead. We are very pleased that the association values our commitment, because we view this certification as our commitment for the future.”

The certificate is valid through February 2022, after which our university must be re-audited. We will need the help of external experts to continue the work on our diversity strategy and come up with concrete actions.