At the heart of the ZFG’s regional networking is a close collaborative relationship with the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Bremen (ZGS). This intensive academic exchange has a long tradition dating back to the ZFG’s foundation and has given rise to sustainable joint projects and activities in the areas of knowledge transfer, support for early-career researchers and study programme development.

As part of a long-standing, ongoing project, both centres maintain a joint series of publications entitled‘Studien interdisziplinäre Geschlechterforschung’ (Studies in Interdisciplinary Gender Research), published by transcript Verlag. The publications released to date have an interdisciplinary focus, drawing on the centres’ diverse academic specialisms.

In the field of supporting early-career researchers, the two centres jointly organised two doctoral workshops on gender studies in 2006 and 2008, which provided doctoral candidates in the field of women’s and gender studies with the opportunity for in-depth exchange, further training and networking.

A long-term collaborative project involved the further development of teaching in the field of gender studies in line with bachelor’s degree structures. Academics from the ZFG and the ZGS designed, implemented and maintained a joint BA Gender Studies degree programme, which has been offered as an inter-university degree programme at both locations to students from Bremen and Oldenburg since the 2007/08 winter semester. Due to far-reaching structural changes – a lack of staff capacity at the ZGS and a reorientation of the ZFG’s academic focus – the BA in Gender Studies was only offered in this collaborative format for new enrolments up to the 2010/11 winter semester.