Equality and diversity at the University of Vienna

Equality and diversity are among the central socio-political challenges of a university. It is the goal of the University of Vienna to be as free of discrimination as possible for all of its affiliates – students and employees. At the same time, gender, equality and diversity are subjects of research and therefore also in teaching.

These two layers are also reflected in the various institutions and initiatives at the University of Vienna as can be seen in the following chart.

Focus on: the Culture and Equality unit

The Culture and Equality unit is part of the Human Resources and Gender Equality service unit. For 20 years, the unit has initiated and shaped change and development of the organisation and organisational culture in the three focus areas gender equality, diversity and reconciliation of all domains of life. As part of the Human Resources and Gender Equality service unit, the Culture and Equality unit mostly focuses on the university employees.

The experts working in the Cuture and Equality unit develop and implement strategies for the University of Vienna based on their knowledge. With practical experiences, existing strategies are constantly (re-)evaluated and developed further. The strategies deal with three big issues that are part of the unit’s assignment.

To implement the developed strategies, the unit, on the one hand, transfers expert knowledge into the organisation, and on the other hand, it designs and manages programmes. Both the knowledge transfers and the programmes can be divided into three areas:

1. In the area of sensitisation and raising awareness, university cultures and structures are reflected to reveal the fields of the university where equality, diversity and reconciliation of life domains can be improved; to sharpen the awareness of structural barriers; and to trigger the necessary processes for change.
2. In the area of career measures and counselling, the unit offers individual assistance. People can participate in programmes that aim to make structural barriers easier to overcome.
3. In the area of monitoring, data are collected and analysed to capture the current state, as well as to follow and control long-term developments.

The unit uses various instruments to realize the topics of the areas sensitisation and raising awareness, career measures and counselling and monitoring. Those instruments can be clustered as follows: