The Gender Diversity Action Team (GDAT) works to establish, promote and safeguard gender equality and increased gender diversity at Hochschule Düsseldorf – University of Applied Sciences. It is a strategic partner for all university members.
Diversity refers to respectful and encouraging recognition of differences. It encompasses strategies, attitudes and goals to create, protect and further develop high-quality output and increasing innovative capacity.
Higher education institutions must internalise and live out the values that underpin society, above all democracy, justice and freedom, if they want their actions to be sustainable and viewed as credible by society at large. At the same time, they must take a critical look at how these values are realised both within and outside the university.
At HSD, we pursue a holistic approach that aims to create conditions that are liveable, sustainable and democratic for everyone. One key element of this is the development of practical measures to promote career opportunities for women and non-binary individuals in science in general and at the university in particular.
We also support scientific approaches that draw attention to discrimination as a barrier to acquiring knowledge. This means that the university has explicitly positioned itself in favour of a feminist orientation in university development.
The Gender Diversity Action Team sees itself as a driving force that helps to establish and implement this institutional commitment. Based on this guiding principle, the Gender Diversity Action Team develops cross-university strategies and concepts as well as specific projects with the university administration, central facilities and faculties. In addition, the GDAT helps to institutionalise, implement and fund these efforts.
A feminist orientation to university development means we focus on the following fields of action:
- Communication and social responsibility
- Sensitisation, awareness-raising and skill development
- Structural inclusion, flexibility and renewal
- Structure, organisation and content of teaching
- Human resources management and development
- Combating and preventing sexualised violence and abuse of power in science
- Gender diversity controlling
