Panel discussion on International Women's Day 2025

To celebrate International Women's Day 2025, the MPIMG Gender Equality Team invited four scientists from different backgrounds to discuss equal opportunities in science on Monday, March 10, 2025.

We welcomed Prof. Dr. Petra Knaus, Vice President of Freie Universität Berlin, Dr. Matthew Kraushar, Research Group Leader at MPIMG, Dr. Alicia Madgwick, Postdoc in the Mundlos group at MPIMG, and Prof. Dr. Martin Vingron, Managing Director at MPIMG to talk about equal opportunities and diversity in science. The event was moderated by Anna Monaco, a postdoc in the Mundlos group, and Andreas Magg, a doctoral candidate in the Ibrahim group. The event was attended by about 35 people.

Anna Monaco and Andreas Magg first introduced key concepts such as intersectionality, unconscious bias, the two-body problem, leaky pipeline, and presented survey results from the PhDNet and Postdoc Net on discrimination, sexual harassment, work-life balance, and career planning.

The panelists then shared their personal experiences, challenges and expertise related to equity in science, such as reconciling work and family life, and then discussed with the public strategies to promote inclusivity and equity in academia. Gender and other factors such as origin, family and socio-economic status, among others, were discussed.

Participants considered the problems associated with the loss of diversity and what changes are needed to make the culture and structure of academia more equitable and open to all. Recent political developments related to the suppression of diversity, equity and inclusion programmes in the USA were also addressed.