Cooperation and International News

The College has a wide network of connections at national and international level through ongoing research projects and participation of its members in various scientific committees. A highlight of the reporting period was the successful nomination by Prof. Karen Shire of Prof. Sylvia Walby OBE: Distinguished Professor of Sociology and UNESCO Chair in Gender Research, Director, Violence and Society UNESCO Centre, Lancaster University, UK, for the 2018 Anneliese Maier Research Award. This is the first time that an Anneliese Maier awardee will be working at the University of Duisburg-Essen. As one of the two host institutions, the EKfG will benefit from internationalisation of its research programme, above all through the analysis of intersectional inequalities, strengthening of its relevant research clusters, and support for junior researchers. Designated for in-depth work are the gender dimensions of human trafficking, the transformation of gender relations in European comparison, and gender and violence.

Among the EKfG’s cooperation partners at institutional level are the Committee of Women’s and Gender Studies Institutions in German- Speaking Areas (KEG), the Gender Studies Association Gender e.V., and the Women’s and Gender Research Network NRW, of which Prof. Anne Schlüter was spokesperson until October 2017. International visibility was also achieved through cooperation with the European Platform of Women Scientists EPWS and continuation of the dissemination activities of the BMBF researchpolicy project “Ready for Dialogue” (2015–2016).

At the level of the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr), the EKfG is one of the founding institutions of the initiative Gender Research at the Universities of the University Alliance Ruhr (GeFoR). The initiative aims to bring together the existing formal interdisciplinary research contexts and study programmes at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund University in order to improve their internal and external visibility. An internet presence to this effect was launched in 2017 as part of the EKfG website. The EKfG lecture series also makes a special point of including contributions from all three partner universities.