Career development for women
A key priority for our university is to support women in their academic and professional careers, and to attract women to senior academic and academic support roles. When designing measures to promote gender parity at the German Sport University Cologne, we take a dual approach at both the structural and cultural levels. In addition, we offer the following measures to provide individual support and assistance to female researchers and women in technical and administrative roles at all career stages.
Our opportunities for female staff and female students
Through TEAMWORKJob, we support you – as a Bachelor’s or Master’s student – in collaboration with the Spoho Career Service as part of the CAREER FITNESS PROGRAMME on your career path. You can find the upcoming dates and further information about the TEAMWORKJob programme on the Career Service website.
Through the TEAMWORKScience mentoring programme, we provide targeted support to female researchers during their early careers, with the aim of strengthening the potential and skills of highly qualified female academics and, in the long term, increasing the proportion of women in senior academic positions within sports science. (Prospective) PhD students can find further information on TEAMWORKScience on the Equality Intranet.
Through the TEAMWORKprofessional programme, the German Sport University Cologne will in future specifically support female postdocs and women in (current or future) leadership roles in academia, technology and the university’s administration in their career development, with a view to opening up long-term prospects for them within the academic system.
A key objective is to make the prospects of securing a professorship or a leadership role within the academic system more transparent and predictable, in order to counteract the early drop-out of qualified women and, in the long term, to increase the proportion of women holding professorships in sports science and in other leadership roles.
TEAMWORKprofessional is currently being set up and is based on the objectives of the University of Sport’s Gender Equality and Higher Education Development Plan. The programme will include both individual coaching sessions and specialist and structural support relating to career paths, appointment procedures and academic leadership. Further information can be found on the Gender Equality intranet.
Through this travel grant, we support female researchers in the early stages of their academic careers. Funding is provided for travel to conferences both in Germany and abroad, which represents an important step in the development of the applicant’s academic career. As a female researcher in the early stages of your career, you can find further information on the application process on the Equality Office’s intranet pages.
Other support services that might be of interest to you
The Family Service at the German Sport University also offers support for researchers with family responsibilities. Information on these services, such as work-life balance coaching or the family grant, can be found on the Family Service’s intranet page.
Researchers at all career stages can find internal funding programmes and further support for their academic careers in the Research section.
As a researcher in the early stages of your career, you also have the option of seeking advice at any time from the Family Support Service at the German Sport University or the Department of Research and Academic Development, or of taking advantage of advisory coaching from the Equal Opportunities Officer. Please feel free to contact us at any time with your concerns and questions. We’ll be happy to help!
Contact persons & further information
Bianca Biallas
Equality Officer
Theresa Hoppe
Advisor to the Equal Opportunities Officer
Further resources to support your career development
"Why so much career support for female researchers..?!"
Gender bias refers to systematic distortions arising from gender-related stereotyping and prejudice. This involves people being treated or judged differently, either consciously or unconsciously, on the basis of gender stereotypes. Gender bias can manifest not only in everyday communication and interaction, but also in academia and research – for example, in the development and evaluation of research designs and findings, or in decisions relating to human resources policy.
The gender pay gap refers to the difference in earnings between women and men. A distinction is made between the unadjusted and adjusted gaps. The unadjusted gender pay gap reflects the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of men and women, which is not adjusted for factors such as occupation, qualifications or working hours. One reason for the large gap is that women are, amongst other things, more likely to work in lower-paid occupations and to work part-time. The adjusted gender pay gap therefore takes into account comparable roles and qualifications. It is slightly smaller than the unadjusted gap.
The so-called ‘glass ceiling’ refers to an invisible barrier that women encounter as they progress in their careers – particularly when they wish to advance to leadership positions.
This barrier is not formally regulated, but it is driven by structural and ideological factors – such as unequal access, assessment criteria or a lack of role models.
The gender data gap (also known as ‘gender data bias’) refers to the under-representation of women in the data collected for studies, as many scientific studies are conducted exclusively with male participants. If the results of these studies are simply extrapolated to women without taking into account the physiological differences between men and women, this can have serious consequences (e.g. in the form of incorrect medication dosages, misdiagnoses, reduced safety for women in vehicles, or discriminatory AI, which learns biases from the training data). For this reason, the failure to take gender-specific differences into account in data collection constitutes a form of gender discrimination.