No. 112/2021

ica, diversity is the superordinate category, and gender is an important sub-category.” THE EXPERT COMMUNITY IN CHINA IS DIVIDED A journey to the opposite end of the world, from the United States to China. “In China, the gender issue does play a role, but not as pronounced as in places like Germany,” says Liqiu Meng. She is a professor of cartography at TUM in Munich and an authority on the Chinese science scene. Meng digs deep into history to address the topic of diversity. “For 1,300 years there was an imperial examina- tion system in China regulating access to higher education,” she says. To this day, entrance examinations were standard practice for university courses. That was why the gender ratio amongst students was more or less equal, without the need for quotas. “Up to doctoral level, it remains roughly balanced – it only tips after that”, Liqiu Meng comments. “Fewer women attempt to get a professorship, which has to do with the traditional distribution of roles.” In one par- ticular aspect of diversity, Liqiu Meng does, however, iden- tify a Chinese speciality: “Unfortunately, the expert com- munity is increasingly fragmenting into schools of thought that tend to compete with one another rather than collabo- rate,” she says. “The talent system at Chinese universities › themselves which, depending on context, play a different role. In the US debate, according to Jeffrey Peck, racism is formative. In Germany, it was now unthinkable to hold a panel discussion only involving men; in the US, you also had to be sure that you didn’t just have white people on the podium. “I have the impression that, in Germany, diversity and gender are often seen as separate categories. In Amer- Students Academic staff 88 72 60 57 35 28 27 14 9 8 4 1 83 68 49 40 7 19 14 14 9 11 4 1 Gender Age Disability Educational background Socio-economic background Ethnic/cultural background Migration background Caring responsibilities Sexual identity (including LGBT+) Religious background/belief We do not collect any of these data in a systematic way I do not know What data do you collect about your students and staff that is of relevance to diversity, equity and inclusion? A survey under a total of 159 higher education institutions from 36 European systems, information in percent Source: European University Association 2019: Diversity, equity and inclusion in European higher education institutions. Results from the INVITED project. 15 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 112/2021