The Commission on the Advancement of Women

Perspective by a Member of the Commision, By Carmen Infante-Duarte

Carmen Infante-Duarte, senior scientist and leader of the research group "Experimental Neuroimmunology" is a member of the Commission for Promotion of Women at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and will tell us about the structure and tasks of this Commission.

When considering the careers of women in science and academia, Berlin, and the Charité in particular, are exceptional: already in 1912, Lydia Rabinowitsch obtained the first professorship of a woman in Berlin; in 1913 Rahel Hirsch became the first woman in Prussia to be appointed as a Charité professor in medicine; and currently, the faculty of medicine at the Charité is the only German medicine faculty that has been chaired by a female Dean, Prof. Dr. Annette Grüters-Kieslich since 2008. Nevertheless, the situation of women in leading positions at the Charite is far from being optimal. While about 60% of the students at the Charité are female, only about 17% of the professors are woman. Thus, the institutional promotion and support of career of women remains an essential task of the faculty.
The Commission for Promotion of Women at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Kommission für Frauenförderung, KoFF) was established by the Faculty Council in autumn 2009 and is composed of 8 female full professors (including chairwoman and deputy chairwoman), 8 scientific associates, 4 students and 2 non-scientific representatives. The KoFF works very closely with the officer for Women and equal opportunities at the Charité (Frauen- und Gleichstellungsbeauftragte, http://frauenbeauftragte.charite.de/) and meets once a month, usually the second Tuesday of the month.

The primary goals of the Commission are:

1. To encourage the establishment of equal opportunities for women and men at the Charité at all professional levels.
2. To support the career of female researchers by advocating the establishment of a family friendly Charité.
3. To promote gender studies within medical research and teaching. The first accomplished objectives of the KoFF were the establishment of a regular dinner-meeting (takes place 3-4 times per year) of female Charité professors, including the Dean, to improve scientific networking, and the creation of a comprehensive and informative homepage (http://koff.charite.de/).

On the KoFF homepage, you can find information and links to:
 -         Research and teaching: including extend information on gender-sensitive research and teaching at the Charité.
-         Funding and fellowships: including information on internal and external funding possibilities for women.
Particularly relevant Charité fellowships and programs are the Rahel-Hirsch fellowship, to promote Habilitation of female scientist; the Lydia Rabinowitsch fellowship, to support (re-)integration of female scientists in the Charité, in case they had to reduce or cease their scientific activity for family or social reasons; and the mentoring program, a personal development strategy to support young female scientists in their career planning and development.
-         Family issues: here you will find links to offices and offers at the Charité that should guaranty a framework for a successful balancing of work and family obligations for all students and employees at the Charité. Very important are the links to the "family office" and internal and external child care services.

 In summary, the KoFF is a recently re-established Commission that aims to make the work of women at the Charité more visible, to promote their networking activities and to improve the presence of women in all professional fields in which they are underrepresented, principally in clinical, scientific and also administrative leader positions.

This article originally appeared 2011 in CNS Volume 4, Issue 1, Neuroenhancement