A collected volume edited by Astrid Franzke and Katrin Springsgut sheds light on equal opportunity efforts in academia. While much has already been achieved, a lot remains to be done, the two editors conclude in a conversation with UniReport.
UniReport: Ms. Franzke, you experienced the academic system in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where you studied and earned your doctorate. What promising approaches to women’s advancement and gender equality existed, what were the limitations, and what got lost during reunification?
Astrid Franzke: First of all, it needs to be said that the issue of promoting women in academia was framed differently in the GDR. Women’s (full-time) employment was considered a key prerequisite for true equality between women and men. At the same time, it was also an economic necessity, which many women internalized as part of their identity, and which also required structural frameworks enabling different life models. So, there did exist an institutional responsibility to make work-life balance possible – including in academia. This included childcare facilities and special study plans for women, which enabled mothers to complete their degrees within the standard study period. These structures also allowed for alternative individual options. In my contribution to the volume, I point out that Leipzig University alone had ten of its own childcare facilities, from nurseries to kindergartens. There were also instruments for advancing women’s careers, including research scholarships for doctoral and postdoctoral qualifications, which sought to increase the number of female professors and make their experiences available to the academic system. Let’s just say that, all told, within the GDR’s academic hierarchy women were better represented at all career stages than at the same time in West Germany. Nonetheless, patriarchal structures were not eradicated. Women remained underrepresented at higher hierarchical levels and across all academic disciplines. Following Germany’s reunification, there was little attempt to adopt anything from the GDR’s academic system. Instead, there was a push for rapid alignment, and the opportunity to change the overall system was missed. Many women researchers from the GDR who were already well established – holding professorships or fixed-term positions – were largely cast aside.
Let’s jump to the present. One contributor to the volume – Ute Klammer – takes a critical look at the terms “excellent” and “excellence.” What is the basis of her critique?
Katrin Springsgut: In the last Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments, those universities that succeeded were of course able to do a lot in terms of equal opportunities with the funds they received, while those universities that were not so successful had fewer opportunities to do so. Ute Klammer demonstrates this through the surveys she conducted of early career researchers. Her conclusion is that we need a broader understanding of excellence. Otherwise, efforts at promoting equal opportunities are undermined. What the early career researchers she surveyed want to do is engage in innovative research with societal relevance. They are much more critical of the strong focus placed on acquiring third-party funding and having a high publication count – parameters that exclude many people, including those with caregiving responsibilities or non-linear academic careers who don’t meet the supposedly objective performance criteria. It would be helpful to apply different standards and to examine where discrimination risks lie. If we expect researchers to be publicly visible, we must acknowledge what potential kinds of discrimination this may involve for certain groups. Klammer gives the example of a Muslim woman wearing a headscarf who is seen not for her work, but merely as a representative of a group she appears to belong to. We are talking here of deeply complex issues.
Franzke: Ute Klammer calls for a broader concept of excellence that doesn’t focus solely on quantitative criteria, which many women, based on their life paths, cannot meet, since they usually reflect a linear academic trajectory modeled on male socialization. Yet diversity offers great potential for our academic system –especially in the context of internationalization. The traditional notion of excellence often fails to reflect the full range of conditions that enable high-quality academic performance. In the end, it is impossible to entirely quantify performance. Qualitative elements such as personal experience and background also play a role. Making these visible and recognizing them as valuable is key to a more encompassing definition of excellence.
Another contributor – Karin Schittenhelm – addresses the ambivalence of international mobility in terms of gender equality.
Franzke: After the postdoc phase especially, there is often an unspoken expectation that scholars must demonstrate international mobility. Through my work with Mentoring Hessen, I know that women researchers who spent extended periods abroad often struggle to reintegrate into the German academic community. I believe we should broaden our understanding: international expertise doesn’t require geographic mobility alone; it can also be demonstrated through engagement in relevant international networks, collaborations, and publishing. Spending a year in the U.S. shouldn’t be the only benchmark for “international mobility.”
Springsgut: As part of her study, Schittenhelm interviewed and accompanied women scientists and academic couples. She found that while women were more likely than men to go abroad during their studies, at later stages in their careers, they could only manage short-term stays. One main reason for this is the still-unequal division of caregiving responsibilities in families – an imbalance that should be more actively addressed. Many couples reach a tipping point: if both partners work in academia, which country do they go to, and for how long? Who takes parental leave? In their essay on “University Care Culture”, Lena Eckert and Anne Frese emphasize the need for more childcare at conferences, for instance – something Goethe University Frankfurt is already working on, including by exploring ideas like a mobility fund to cover conference and research travel expenses for early career researchers with children. The COVID-19 pandemic also showed that women bore the brunt of school and childcare closures; apart from care responsibilities for ill family members, which also disproportionately fell to women, leaving many with less time for research.
The compatibility – or lack thereof – of academic work and caregiving is certainly a core equal opportunity issue.
Franzke: The article by early career researchers Lena Eckert and Anne Frese outlines their personal experiences of the (in)compatibility of motherhood and academia. Both innovative and brave, the contribution shows how difficult it is to stay connected to the academic community in this situation. They emphasize that while many support structures exist for women, they often don’t fully account for the realities of motherhood. Some guidelines make it difficult if not impossible to effectively combine different types of support.
Springsgut: Even as a university, we sometimes reach our limits when support measures we would like to implement encounter legal or practical obstacles. This was the case, for example, with the establishment of the FlexiKids Fund to finance childcare during off-peak hours. We spent a long time working with the relevant departments to develop a good solution. Our Executive Board was also very supportive. The issue is a complex one, raising a variety of follow-up questions: Do family-friendly working hours and meeting times exist? Are managers aware of the living and working conditions of employees with caregiving responsibilities? Naturally, as the Equal Opportunities Office, this is also something we are working on.
Ms. Franzke, your colleague Anja Wolde, Goethe University’s central Equal Opportunities Officer, wrote the volume’s foreword. With respect to women’s advancement and gender equality work, she says: “The glass is half full, the glass is half empty.” Would you agree?
Franzke: I think so. I would also like to say something about the concept of our volume: Focusing on higher education and science, we brought together sociological women’s and gender studies with the practice of gender equality work and women’s advancement. Thinking both together is crucial for the further development of concrete equal opportunity measures, which, in my opinion, will require further elaboration, especially with a view towards diversity. Everything we develop going forward must be structurally and financially sound and sustainable. While we’ve had good experiences obtaining funding for many projects, it’s not always possible to integrate these ideas into regular structures once a project ends. Speaking from personal experience, I for one have found it incredibly important to adopt a positive attitude toward change. Not only does this make transitions more successful, one also discovers new opportunities, and can grow into new networks. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to cultivate a productive and cooperative atmosphere. In retrospect, I had the great opportunity to promote exactly this in various projects. Since female researchers are naturally also in competition with each other, it’s essential to consider how we can act in solidarity and support one another. You’ll find countless examples of just that in the contributions to our book.
Springsgut: I would agree with the assessment that “the glass is both half full and half empty.” On the one hand, equal opportunity work has become indispensable at universities, where the proportion of women is steadily increasing. The instruments for promoting women are well-established, and we highlight some of them in our volume. I also welcome the fact that the intersectional perspective is increasingly being taken into account and implemented. On the other hand, we still see that the proportion of women in leadership positions varies greatly. At our university, for instance, we have very few female deans. So we mustn’t rest on our laurels.
I would also like to call on universities once again to recognize their responsibility in this regard: They are not just places that produce knowledge and innovations, but also promote democracy, equal opportunities, and diversity. And if we look at the current global political climate, I definitely see risks that we might face setbacks – also in Germany – as the competition for resources intensifies.
Astrid Franzke und Katrin Springsgut (eds.):
Gleichstellung im Wandel. Neue Herausforderungen und Karrierewege von Frauen in der Wissenschaft [Gender Equality in Transition. New Challenges and Career Paths for Women in Academia]
Sulzbach: Verlag Ulrike Helmer 2025
