More than forty thousand people with diverse identities, belongings, backgrounds, and experiences study and work at Freie Universität Berlin.

“Diversity” refers to our ability and readiness to acknowledge and value the many interlinked differences and commonalities between groups of people, and to dismantle barriers that prevent people from being able to participate equally.

The critical reflection of issues and developments in society and the fulfillment of our social responsibility are firmly engrained in Freie Universität’s ethos. Our founding principles, key concepts, and values, and our profile as a university that stands for truth, justice, and freedom, all require that we acknowledge and promote diversity in all aspects of academic life. This involves an ongoing self-critique in which we recognize power imbalances and reflect upon the ways in which specific groups are excluded, in order to deconstruct and break free from these mechanisms of discrimination. This essentially means that diversity and antidiscrimination are two sides of the same coin.

In line with this responsibility, Freie Universität has formulated the following overarching and interlocking objectives that guide our diversity work:

• The equitable participation of all university members regardless of their positioning within various diversity dimensions or social categories,

• An accessible and nondiscriminatory teaching, learning, and working environment,

• An organizational culture that values diversity and fosters mutually respectful cooperation among all status groups,

• The sustainable implementation of structural equal opportunity.

Freie Universität Berlin is pursuing these objectives with a Diversity Strategy and Action Plan, in which they are translated into concrete outcomes and measures.

Freie Universität looks back on a long and successful history of valuing diversity and combating inequality. There is, however, still a lot that needs to be done. The Diversity Mission Statement that the university published in 2013 serves as a starting point for our diversity strategy. In addition to the required legal measures, such as staff representatives, we are implementing measures in a wide range of areas, with and for all status groups of university members.

In 2017 and 2021 Freie Universität Berlin was awarded the diversity seal of the TOTAL E-QUALITY Award. We consider this an affirmation of the diversity work we have done to date and a further motivation to continue on our path of promoting diversity and combating barriers that stand in the way of equitable participation.

Members of the Freie Universität can receive information about developments and opportunities to contribute via the mailing list Mailingliste Diversity@FU.  If you switch from “Deutsch” to “English” in the language field and then click on the field “Anzeige dieser Seite auf/View this page in,” you can complete the registration form in English. Where possible emails are in both German and English

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