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Promoting equal opportunity and achieving equal participation for women and men are among BIH’s strategic goals and provide an important basis for excellent research. Despite the high percentage of female students, women remain underrepresented in certain academic fields (notably medicine), in scientific research, and in professorships. Structural barriers often hinder their careers and make advancement more difficult.

BIH seeks to remedy this situation by supporting the career paths of female scientists and clinicians. Each year, a call for applications is issued for the BIH Gender Equality Fund in order to promote the research activities of female scientists and clinicians.

Applications seeking support in 2019 for the hiring of student assistants can be submitted to the Fund. Funding is limited to a maximum of 5,000 euros per person and per calendar year, and is available from January to December 2019. Cost reimbursement cannot be guaranteed in following calendar year. Student assistants must be employed by the respective home institution. The funds may also be used for consumables.

Eligibility

Eligible applicants are mid-career women scientists (postdocs, junior clinical scientists, clinical scientists, junior professors, junior group leaders) working within the BIH translational research commons (BIH, Charité. MDC) who are pursuing translational research projects in line with the BIH strategy. Only women scientists with a fixed-term position or a fellowship are eligible to apply.

BIH especially seeks to support women scientists with family responsibilities, in particular:

  • Women scientists on maternity or paternal leave
  • Women scientists with children aged three and under
  • Women scientists who will be taking a leave of absence due to family commitments in the coming 12 months
  • Single motherr

How to apply

Please submit your application via the BIH portal at https://portal.bihealth.de/portal/. To apply you must register for the application portal.

The deadline for submission of applications is November 1, 2018 at 2 pm CET. You may submit your application in German or English. In addition to answering the online questions, please upload the following documents (in separate PDF files) into the portal:

  • Your academic CV (please use the template provided in the download area), max. two pages
  • A description of your research activities according to the QUEST criteria (please use the template provided in the download area), max. one page

Your application will be forwarded to the selection committee in anonymous form. We therefore ask you not to include any personal details in your answers or in the uploaded documents, unless you are explicitly asked to do so. We ask for your personal details in the portal, but this information will not be forwarded to the committee.

Selection process

The selection is made by Charité’s Equal Opportunities Committee, in consultation with women’s representatives from the MDC. The QUEST Center advises the committee on the attributes of robust and innovative research. Successful applicants are tentatively scheduled to be notified in late December 2018.

If you are selected to receive funding, the costs cannot be reimbursed until supporting documentation of the actual expenses has been provided. The funds may be spent from January to December 2019.

Contact

Should you have any questions, please contact BIH’s Equal Opportunity Officer, Karin Höhne (karin.hoehne@bihealth.de, +49 30 450 543 048).

If you have any specific questions about the QUEST criteria, please contact Dr. Miriam Kip (miriam.kip@bihealth.de).