Supporting women
Supporting women
The University of Oldenburg was the first university in Lower Saxony to set up an equal opportunities office for women in 1987. In its 35-year tradition, gender equality work at the University of Oldenburg has achieved a number of successes. Among other things, it has successfully participated in the federal and state programme for female professors since 2008 and is committed to the "research-oriented equality standards" of the German Research Foundation (DFG). In the DFG's research-oriented gender equality standards in 2013, gender equality work was classified in the highest category. After several successful re-audits, the University of Oldenburg was awarded the "family-friendly university audit" certificate on a permanent basis. In 2018, the University of Oldenburg's gender equality concept was positively evaluated in the third phase of the female professors programme. You can find an overview of important events here.
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer supports women in science and studies, technology and administration:
Personalised advice
The central Equal Opportunities Officer provides individual support for women at the University of Oldenburg:
- She advises female students, graduates and doctoral candidates on planning their careers.
- She organises coaching sessions for female academics in preparation for appointment procedures.
- It advises women who feel disadvantaged or discriminated against in their workplace at the university.
- She advises and supports the decentralised equal opportunities officers in the School, administration and central institutions on an individual basis.
If you would like to arrange an individual counselling appointment, please send an email to
Strategic university development and quality assurance
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer is involved in development planning and structural decisions at the strategic level and evaluates the results of implementation, e.g:
- Central equal opportunities plan, university development plan, target agreements
- Further development of procedures for the consistent consideration of equal opportunities in university controlling processes (science, teaching, administration)
- Research-oriented gender equality standards of the DFG
- University guidelines on equal opportunities, such as guidelines for appointment management, recruitment guidelines, guidelines against sexual discrimination and violence
Representation of interests and networking
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer represents the interests of women at the University of Oldenburg and supports the networking of women:
- Accompanying, supporting and coordinating the decentralised Equal Opportunities Officers in the Schools
- Representing the interests of women in recruitment and appointment procedures
- Networking and coaching in preparation for appointment procedures
- Preparation of information material and contributions in the field of equal opportunities work
Career advancement
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer supports women on their career path:
- Development of concepts for information programmes for schoolgirls, female students and female doctoral candidates, in particular for career promotion in the STEM subjects (Mathematics, Computing Science, Natural and Technical Sciences); support for Youth Future Day for girls and boys in Lower Saxony (Girls' Day/Boys' Day at federal level)
- Concept for cross-faculty mentoring for all qualification levels
- Collaboration in the development of targeted offers for science-related further education for women
Equal opportunities in research and teaching
The Central Equal Opportunities Officer supports the consideration of the "gender" dimension in research and teaching:
- Screening procedures on funding instruments for individual subjects, methods and theories of women's and gender studies in teaching and research.
- Conception and initiation of the "Helene Lange Prize for Young Women Scientists", which has been awarded annually since 2009 by the university in co-operation with the EWE Foundation
- Supporting measures to promote encounters between academia and the interested public on important fields of research at the University of Oldenburg, taking into account innovative issues such as gender research.