SCRIPTS is hosting a roundtable on the "Diversity Turn" in German Research Policy on 17 October 2023 from 14:00-16:00 CET at Freie Universität Berlin. The roundtable will also be streamed live on the SCRIPTS YouTube channel.

The panelists are:

• Andrea Bührmann (Director of the Göttinger Institut für Diversitätsforschung)
• Gülay Çağlar (SCRIPTS & FU Berlin)
• Thomas Hinz (Universität Konstanz and member of the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality")
• Kathrin Zippel (SCRIPTS & FU Berlin).

The announcement of the organizers reads as follows:"“Diversity” seems to be the new rising paradigm within German research policies. Working in tandem with the already well diffused but equally ambiguous principle of “excellence”, diversity is seen as a means of ensuring international competitiveness in academic research. However, the establishment of Diversity Offices and “research-oriented equity and diversity standards” by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) has been met with controversy in the academic community. The critiques of the diversity turn focus on alleged anti-merit-based diversity policies that supposedly counteract aspirations for excellence. Proponents of the diversity turn, however, examine the seeming meritocracy of the university critically and propose a more inclusive notion of excellence. Another hot topic of this debate is if diversity measures cause restrictions of academic freedom. In this heated exchange on principles, the scientific evidence behind the justification for diversity is often overlooked if not strategically disregarded.

The roundtable aims to address these controversial issues by choosing the format of a cluster of excellence as a case study and exploring the following questions: how can diversity be realized within such a cluster? How do clusters of excellence balance diversity, excellence, and merit? How and where can lessons learned from comparable international contexts be applied to this format? If clusters serve as places for innovation for German academia, how can their knowledge be transferred to universities and scaled up to the system as a whole? The roundtable will provide a platform for a nuanced discussion on the challenges and opportunities presented by the "diversity turn" in German research policy and its implications for academic excellence and inclusion."

Please read the full announcement and how to attend here.