No. 112/2021

Back in Germany with Silke Wieprecht, the Stuttgart water resources professor who, for many years, was chair of the selection committee for the Humboldt Foundation’s Georg Forster Research Fellowships and Awards. “The trouble with selection processes is that you simply can’t identify, for instance, the candidates’ social background from their application documents,” she says. You could read about their university education, research interests and how the reviewers evaluated them – but not whether they were the first person in their family to go to university or came from a socially disadvantaged region. Traditionally, the Humboldt Foundation does not apply quotas. It sponsors excellent researchers. And it is clear that the Humboldt Network draws its power from the diversity and internationality of its members. In its almost 70-year history, the Humboldt Foundation has united more than 30,000 researchers worldwide: current sponsorship recip- ients and alumni in all disciplines from over 140 coun- tries. Nonetheless, in several consecutive selection rounds for Germany’s most valuable research award, the Hum- boldt Professorship, for example, not a single woman was selected. Not least in response to this situation, the Foun- dation recently commissioned a gender potential and needs analysis based on data from 14 countries around the world. It seeks to ascertain how high the percentage of qualified women who could potentially be recruited for a research stay in Germany really is and what their needs are. Accord- ing to the head of the study, Andrea Löther of the Centre of Excellence Women and Science at the Cologne-based Leib- niz Institute for the Social Sciences, it is also about factors that may influence women’s perception of whether they can envisage a research stay abroad: “For instance, what role is played by the female applicants’ family situation or the discipline in which they conduct research?” The aim, Löther continues, is to formulate clear recommendations for action when the study is completed at the end of 2021. For Jeffrey Peck from the United States one recommen- dation is already a given: in order to achieve greater diver- sity, more data must finally be collected – particularly in Germany where data protection often poses obstacles. “If I want to promote researchers from a migrant background or ethnic minority, I must know the figures – otherwise you are just left with declarations of intent because you can’t measure any progress at all.” WITHOUT DATA, YOU ARE JUST LEFT WITH DECLARATIONS OF INTENT BECAUSE YOU CAN’T MEASURE ANY PROGRESS AT ALL.” “ FOCUS 20 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 112/2021