Wissenschaftler:innen und Karriere Jena

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) promotes equal opportunities for scientists in its programmes. In order to pool and use the equal opportunities funds of coordinated programmes for targeted and tailored measures, the association "Wissenschaftler:innen und Karriere Jena" („Scientists and Career Jena“) was founded on 1 November 2020.

The members of the association benefit from the possibility of pooling funds by realising larger, joint projects. This offers smaller member institutions in particular the opportunity to participate in the implementation of larger measures. The association also supports the interdisciplinary exchange of experiences and as a platform for brainstorming and networking. In addition to the classic support measures and a range of workshops, target group-specific mentoring programmes, further education and coaching programmes to promote the career development of young scientists as well as measures to promote family-friendly workplaces in science will be planned, organised and implemented on the basis of an annual assessment of each member’s needs. For this purpose, a coordination office was set up linked to the Equal Opportunities Office of the Friedrich Schiller University (FSU) Jena, which mediates the project in accordance with the requirements of the association members and evaluates the achievement of objectives of the individual and association measures on an annual basis.

The four founding members include the Collaborative Research Centres CRC/TR 234 CataLight, CRC 1076 AquaDiva and CRC 1127 ChemBioSys of FSU Jena as well as the Clinician Scientist Programme CSP OrganAge at the Jena University Hospital and the Medical Faculty. Since 1 January 2021, the Collaborative Research Centre CRC/TR 124 FungiNet is the first member joining the association after its founding. It is planned to associate other coordinated DFG-funded programmes in the future.

Link to press release of FSU Jena