No. 112/2021

25 HUMBOLDT KOSMOS 112/2021 Her tenacity also possibly helps explain why Anke Hoeffler is one of the few top women researchers to hold a Humboldt Professorship today. The Humboldt Foundation is all too painfully aware how low the percentage of female nomi- nations and appointments in the programme actually is. Only 15 of the 84 Humboldt Professors appointed to date are women, despite the Foundation explicitly campaign- ing for female researchers to be nominated – also a famil- iar gender ratio in Hoeffler’s discipline. “When I studied economics in Würzburg, there wasn’t a single female pro- fessor,” she says. She encountered the first woman teach- ing in academia in the UK in 1992. As soon as free movement within the European Union became possible in 1992, Hoeffler grasped the opportu- nity and moved to London where she had enrolled for an additional master’s degree in economics. Back then, she found German curricula far too narrow and inward-look- ing. She wanted to keep pace with research in her subject in the English-speaking world, which was setting the tone at the time. The fact that she is now returning to Germany is just a logical consequence of Brexit, she says. In leaving the European Union, the scope for research in the UK has been reduced. CAREER DESPITE FAMILY AND PART-TIME JOB “When I was a student, I would never have thought twice about the dearth of female role models,” Hoeffler remem- bers. “But when I experienced the first woman professor in London, I was pleasantly surprised.” Hoeffler herself spent ten years of her research career working part time. For the sake of her husband’s preeminent position, she took a back seat when her two sons were small. Another point in her biography at which everything could have gone wrong, › DISPLACEMENT: Children play in between armed Peshmerga fighters in the Hasan Sham refugee camp in northern Iraq. Thousands of people fled here from the fighting against “Islamic State” around the former IS strong- hold of Mosul. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/ Jens Büttner WHETHER THESE GROUPS REALLY GAIN THE POWER THAT COULD ENDANGER THE STATE DEPENDS HEAVILY ON THEIR FINANCIAL SUPPORT.” “