Freie Universität Berlin will be participating in the audit “Shaping Diversity” (“Vielfalt Gestalten”) carried out by the Stifterverband Association until 2023.

The audit is an organizational development process that aims to increase equal opportunities within universities and to combat discrimination with a respectful approach to diversity. This process will support us in tackling issues related to antidiscrimination and diversity and in coming closer to achieving our objectives.

Our participation in this process signals our commitment to engaging with diversity issues and agreeing upon a university-wide organizational structure that truly does diversity justice. It attests to the strategic importance we at Freie Universität attach to diversity.

At the start of the process in 2020 we conducted an initial situation analysis and developed the university’s first Diversity Strategy and Action Plan. Various units and working groups are implementing the measures laid out in the Diversity Strategy and Action Plan over the course of the diversity audit. This participative process is being accompanied by an external expert (“auditor”), led by the Vice-President for Diversity and the Diversity & Antidiscrimination Office, and supported by the Diversity Governance bodies. It also includes networking and exchange with other universities participating in the audit, and the learning gained through that flows back into our own internal process.

If everything goes according to plan and we are successful in our efforts, we will be certified by the Stifterverband in 2023.

• Further information on the diversity audit (in German)
• Video documentation of the Audit launch event (with English and German subtitles)
• Interview in campus.leben about the university's participation in the Diversit Audit and the Diversity Strategy and Action Plan, with Vice-President Verena Blechinger-Talcott and Gabriele Rosenstreich, February 25, 2021 (in German)

The diversity website is a work in progress so your feedback or suggestions for content would be much appreciated: diversity@fu-berlin.de