18 January 2023: Workshop "Designing Excellent Research – How Gender Aspects Can Be Considered In STEM-Research"

Conducting excellent research is an aspiration that probably most researchers pursue.
But what actually makes research excellent and so comprehensive that it benefits society as a whole?
The gender dimension in STEM research is an aspect that has been given little consideration in the design of research content. It is becoming increasingly important, for example in the context of third-party funding applications (EU, DFG, etc.), but is often not sufficiently taken into account or is not considered relevant for many research fields. In this context, gender biases in research hinder both the equal participation of the sexes in research (previously thematized as "underrepresentation of women") and the validity of the research results themselves. It is not only critical who does research, but how research is done, in order to eliminate gender bias or disparity, as well as bias in research.
The workshop "Designing Excellent Research" on January 18, 2023, used illustrative examples from different STEM research fields to raise awareness of how to take gender aspects into account in research and provided suggestions for the participants' scientific practice. The trainer, Dr. Clemens Striebing, Senior Researcher at the Fraunhofer Center for Responsible Research and Innovation (CeRRI), explained, what gender and gender bias are about, how they come about and how gender essentialism and gender-specific data gaps can affect research findings, also in the STEM field. The large scale effects of even small gender gaps were discussed as well as the lack of participation of women in R&D processes in different industries and hierarchical levels. Space was also given for reflection on one's own role as a scientist and researcher, including analysis of biases and possible data gaps related to gender in one's own research.