Equal Opportunities

SCIoI is strongly committed to providing equal opportunities for researchers at all career stages, irrespective of their gender. We welcome people from all backgrounds and we seek to include knowledge and values from many scientific cultures. We engage in activities and programs which further our understanding of individual and group diversity and will develop and communicate policies and promote values that discourage intolerance and discrimination. We aim to maintain a balance of female and male students in all our programs. To achieve this, we recognize the particular necessity to support the careers of female researchers.

Measures

Our Equal Opportunities Committee oversees and evaluates measures to increase the representation of underrepresented groups within the Cluster. The committee is responsible for all matters relating to other aspects of diversity, and is supported by the gender and diversity officer.

Other equal opportunity measures include: networking and mentoring possibilities for female students and researchers, a family-friendly working environment, and special training for our principal investigators.

Supporting diversity during the application process

To enable people from all backgrounds to apply to SCIoI, we cover travel costs for interviews. Applicants traveling with children can receive childcare during the interview upon request, and may also be eligible to get reimbursed for their children’s travel costs. Please contact our office.

Mentoring and Training

We provide mentoring to underrepresented groups at all levels of their academic career. More advanced doctoral students and postdocs serve as peer mentors, and PIs mentor advanced post-docs. This measure especially benefits from the high ratio of female post-docs and PIs in SCIoI. We also offer courses in career planning and soft-skills specifically targeting women. Furthermore, our principal investigators in SCIoI receive special training to create a gender-sensitive and diversity-encouraging working environment.

Childcare

To facilitate professional travel for researchers (irrespective of their gender) with young children, SCIoI subsidizes the travel of the children, and fund professional childcare at the destination or subsidize travel for the other childcare-providing parent or partner. By default, all positions for doctoral students and postdocs within SCIoI are full-time. To accommodate a balance between family and career, part-time positions are granted upon the request of the researcher.