Gender Equality

The IRS is committed to implementing and safeguarding the principle of gender equality in its institutional practice, to preventing gender-based discrimination, to achieving gender parity on all levels of qualification and organisation, and to improving the compatibility of work and family life and/or caregiving. To this end, the IRS director is supported by an Equal Opportunities Officer and her deputies. The Equal Opportunities Officer carries out her duties independently, is involved in all Human Resources developments at the IRS that relate to gender equality issues, and regularly reports on her activities to the institute's staff.  

The Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space

• bases its equal opportunities policy on the Agreement from the German Joint Science Conference (GWK) Regarding the Equal Status of Men and Women in Joint Research Funding (Ausführungsvereinbarung über die Gleichstellung von Frauen und Männern AV-Glei) which was passed in October 2008
• applies the German Research Foundation’s Research-Oriented Standards on Gender Equality
• has an equal opportunities plan that is updated every two years
• elects an Equal Opportunity Officer and her deputies, all of whom are actively involved in the institute's affairs, every four years
• heeds gender equality principles in its Human Resources policy and in fostering junior researchers
• offers flexible working hours and family-friendly meeting times
• offers a parent-child office and quiet room
• helps employees with children or family members in need of care to balance work and family life
• offers to keep employees on parental leave in the institute's information flow and to provide advanced vocation training to support their return to work
• has had its efforts to enhance work and family life compatibility objectively audited and was subsequently awarded the “audit berufundfamilie” certificate in 2015.
• has developed a guideline for gender-sensitive language as orientation for internal and external communication