Our diversity strategy

Each of our students has different talents, personal attributes and life circumstances, and is on a different life journey. H-BRS supports and empowers its students according to their individual character and needs. The environment at H-BRS helps every student to achieve the greatest possible success in their studies.

Our campus is an increasingly varied and diverse environment. The diversity of our university members reflects their different skills and experiences. This diversity is at once challenging, enriching and full of opportunities.

University graduates face increasingly diverse workplaces, colleagues and teams when they join the professional world, and the university needs to prepare them for this. Employees also find themselves in working and living environments that are very diverse.

In order to help all our university members to experience and engage with diversity in the best possible way, H-BRS is working to enhance the diversity skills of all its members.  

Diversity skills are thus key to respectful, constructive interactions.

At H-BRS, we aim to offer students and staff the best possible opportunities to develop and grow, and to maintain a respectful, cooperative working, learning and living environment.  This functions by creating a framework for collaborative interactions, enabling participation and ensuring equality – taking into account the different circumstances and phases of life in which our university members find themselves.

Diversity-sensitive teaching and support is of primary importance at H-BRS. Diversity management enables students to succeed in their studies regardless of differences in character and approach.

Our diversity-focused support and supervision covers the entire student life cycle: it starts with diversity-sensitive student recruitment, takes the transition from school to university into consideration, and ensures that all interested students have the opportunity to visit other universities or engage with internationalisation and diversity in other ways. The teaching staff and administration address changes in the life circumstances of students (e.g. becoming a parent, illness or care responsibilities) in a solution-oriented way that aims to enable continued academic success. Students are prepared for the transition from university to the professional world with targeted support that is tailored to their needs. In addition to equipping them with excellent specialist and methodological skills, students’ general diversity skills are enhanced, which contributes significantly to their personal development, offers additional benefits and increases their employability.

Teaching staff also benefit from diversity management. They are given tools and guidance on dealing with the challenges posed by a heterogeneous student body in an engaged, solution-focused way.

This helps boost H-BRS’s reputation as a diversity-sensitive university. The university is able to attract an increasing number of talented, motivated students that don’t fit the ‘traditional student image’.

Diversity in research creates space for inspiration and innovation. Broadening people’s horizons enables fresh perspectives and offers insights.

Diversity management in research not only relates to diversity among researchers but also among study participants, in order to take into account the effects on the research results, their applicability and value. Taking diversity into consideration in research thus adds a new qualitative dimension to the research results.

It also lends a competitive edge when it comes to grant applications and third-party funding, as sponsors and funding bodies are paying increasing attention to the diversity management and diversity-related activities of applicants.

The diversity work carried out at H-BRS has an impact on the region. Our diversity management programme is widely recognised beyond the university, too. This makes us a trusted partner for joint activities, as well as a platform for and provider of public diversity-related events.

Our engagement with diversity at H-BRS addresses current societal questions and stimuli, confronts current challenges and identifies solutions. As a result, H-BRS has an impact on society, helps to shape a liveable future and equips graduates to enter the working world with an awareness of diversity.

Digitalisation creates new opportunities for diversity-related activities, while also contributing to more educational variety and enabling more opportunities for participation by people in different life circumstances.

At the same time, digitalisation can present new challenges and barriers for certain groups of university members. Our diversity management therefore addresses both the opportunities offered by digitalisation and the associated challenges. Accordingly, our diversity management helps make digitalisation as accessible as possible to all university members.

Digital communication tools enable networking among stakeholders both within and outside of the university, increase the visibility of the university’s diversity-related engagement and have a positive societal impact.

The internationality of our students is a source of diversity, and facilitates intercultural experiences on our international campus. Personal encounters allow diversity to be experienced first-hand, and highlight how enriching diversity and cultural exchange are. H-BRS has tackled the associated challenges very successfully for many years with established structures and actors such as the International Office and the H-BRS Welcome Centre.

As part of its international exchange, H-BRS learns from the experiences of other universities and the diversity management models of different countries.

As a mirror of society, our university is the perfect microcosm in which to learn how to interact collaboratively with others, practise these skills and develop respect and tolerance. In doing so, the development of skill sets that are crucial to the stability and foundational values of our democratic society is promoted. The university provides orientation for its members and imparts skills which are vital in a living and working environment characterised by diversity.

Diversity-sensitive governance structures enable transparency and comprehensible processes, and prevent exclusion and discrimination. Our staff appointments and staff management take diversity aspects into consideration and address the particularities of the different life stages and situations in which our university members find themselves.

Providing stimuli

• We will implement our diversity strategy and develop a concept for the sustainable implementation of a diversity management system at H-BRS.

• We will offer a wide range of personal development opportunities to help make our students more employable.

• We will underline the importance of diversity as a topic that spans all the university’s fields of action. We will advise all university members on the planning and implementation of measures.

Creating visibility

• The initiative “Respekt! Time for Diversity, Time for Sustainability” has become well-established as a brand. We will continue this annual series of events and expand the offers available throughout the year

• We will develop, coordinate and implement a portfolio of measures intended to increase the diversity competence of all university members

• All university members will receive regular information on diversity issues via appropriate channels.

• We will position H-BRS as a diversity-friendly university and increase the visibility of our diversity measures and contact persons.

Networking stakeholders

• We will create a suitable framework that will facilitate an efficient exchange of information between all stakeholders at H-BRS.

• We will create synergies between the diverse stakeholders at our university and increase efficiency.

• We will also connect with diversity stakeholders in the Bonn-Rhine-Sieg region.

Promoting equality

• The Equal Opportunities Office offers a wide range of services to help university members reconcile their work and studies with their family life; it also provides support for junior scientists.