Excellent research needs a diversity of perspectives and experience. This can be achieved by ensuring diversity among researchers, a diversity-friendly working environment and non-discriminatory participation. Diversity – also “multiplicity”, variety” or “heterogeneity”, which are used synonymously by the DFG – refers to the dimensions of difference between human beings and therefore researchers, too. In addition to sex and/or gender, the term includes other dimensions such as age, ethnic origin and nationality, sexual orientation, religion and ideology, disability or chronic/long-term illness as well as social origin (e.g. based on a person's economic situation, non-academic family background/family without experience of higher education/first generation academics, migration background). It also includes international researchers from different cultural backgrounds or whose experience is limited to a different research system and who are now based in Germany, so they are having to establish themselves in the German research system and find their bearings within it. Where one person combines more than one such dimension of difference (intersectionality), this should also be taken into account appropriately. When selecting dimensions of diversity and the appropriate measures, it is sensible and indeed necessary to ensure they suit the specific site or project. In this way, each project can set priorities based on its own profile.
The Standard Allowance for Equity and Diversity can also be used to finance measures dedicated to the structural promotion of diversity in science and the humanities so as to improve integration of the full range of societal potential to benefit research. Even in view of efforts to promote greater diversity in science and the humanities, high priority must continue to be attached to the pursuit of equity and parity among female researchers.
The objective of promoting diversity in science and the humanities must be documented for each specific measure.
The following measures can be financed for research staff, for example:
Career measures can be funded to promote diversity in science and the humanities (e.g. for first generation academics, researchers with a disability or a long-term illness, or for refugee researchers). In the case of new measures in particular, attention should be paid to quality (or quality assurance); if a trainer is involved, care must be taken to ensure that they possess expertise and sensitivity in the area of diversity. Career measures might include the following:
In certain constellations, support/relief staff can be financed from the Standard Allowance for Equity and Diversity in the case of absences due to parental leave (mor) or long-term illness (mor or see www.dfg.de/diversity/personal_circumstance). Other compensation options are available beyond the Standard Allowance for Equity and Diversity, too. These are available both to overall project managers (or those in charge of individual projects) and the research staff employed on a project. See the above links for details.
Academic relief staff (student assistants/research assistants), e.g. for researchers with a disability or a long-term illness, in accordance with the framework conditions set out under “Compatibility” and “Funding of relief staff”. mor
It is possible to obtain (pro rata) funding for an office assistant or a coordination office to organise equity measures for researchers within the network with the aim of meeting additional requirements incurred by equity measures applied within a DFG-funded project. The project-specific requirements must be plausibly documented. However, under no circumstances should the majority of the allowance be spent on this measure.
In the years 2020 – 2022, higher education institutions addressed diversity in connection with reporting on the DFG’s Research-Oriented Equality and Diversity Standards. The resulting “Summary and Recommendations” contain an overview of measures to promote diversity (section 6.2; in particular “individual”) which also serve as suggestions for the development of project-specific measures.
If you have any questions regarding the financial feasibility of measures, please contact: