Cooperations & Networks

By signing joint guidelines, RWTH Aachen University, the University of Cologne, Cologne University of Technology, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH and the German Aerospace Center e.V. reaffirm their commitment to equal opportunities. The public announcement of the signing took place on May 03, 2018 at RWTH. In August 2022 FH Aachen - University of Applied Sciences joined the guidelines, in October 2023 the University of Bonn.

The universities and research institutions mentioned above have long enjoyed a close partnership in research, teaching and science management. The Joint Guidelines on Equal Opportunities create a framework for ensuring that the institutions involved are open to all people - regardless of their circumstances and social backgrounds.

CESAER is a network of leading specialised and comprehensive universities of science and technology and thus a recognized advocacy organization for the European Research Area (ERA). The network unites more than 50 research-intensive engineering and science universities in Europe and beyond.

IGaD is particularly involved in the Task Force Human Resources (TFHR) and the Workgroup Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Liaisons. In the TFHR, more than 40 HR experts, managers and university administrators from more than 20 European countries exchange views on current HR-related topics and develop recommendations for member universities as well as national and international decision-makers. The Workgroup EDI Liaisons is an informal working group directly related to the Task Force Human Resources and is dedicated to good practice sharing in the area of equality and equal opportunities and supports the member universities in implementing the commitments of the association's Declaration on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Universities of Science and Technology.

The European Network of Mentoring Programs eument-net supports the development and improvement of mentoring programs in academia and research.

The TANDEM mentoring programs are members of Forum Mentoring e.V. (de), the federal association of mentoring in academia. Its goals are to initiate, conceptually further develop, institutionalize, and perform quality assurance for mentoring measures, in terms of equal opportunity for young academics, and for academic HR development. 

The network of German participants in EU projects with gender relevance was founded in 2019. The exchange meetings enable a continuous exchange on the work in and around EU-funded projects with gender equality relevance.

The national Network Diversity in Higher Education Working Group presents and explains experiences with – and good examples of – diversity management in higher education. As a rule, their meetings focus on diversity-related issues.

The Women's & Gender Research Network NRW promotes gender-related exchanges in the area of academic research.

The GenderConsulting Network for research associations brings together equality actors who work with gender consulting and who develop and implement equality measures for research associations in higher education.

The LAG SB NRW represents the interests of the commissioned and advising persons for disabled and chronically ill students in the federal state of NRW.

In the BMBF-funded project "EXENKO - Discovering and Communicating Excellence. Sensitization and competence development on the topic of excellence and gender for postdocs and actors in university communication", research is being conducted into which achievements in science are perceived as excellent and how they are made visible.