Diversity

As a university, we practice diversity management in order to fulfill our legal mandate for science in research and teaching in the best possible way. Diversity management shapes and ensures equal opportunities and accessibility and is proactive anti-discrimination.

Diversity is a defining characteristic of universities. Science and research thrive on the differentiation of perspectives and questions. Furthermore, studying and teaching are also permeated by diversity: Students come from different countries and cultures, are of different ages, have different backgrounds of experience and are interested in different subject areas; they are of different genders and have different abilities. Finally, universities employ an equally diverse range of people in research, teaching, administration, and technical support with specialized areas of responsibility and qualifications.

This fact goes hand in hand with the realization that actively shaping diversity at universities is essential if they are to fulfill their tasks in a changing society. This also includes the implementation of justice concerns and anti-discrimination laws, prejudice-free recruitment for research, teaching, studies, administration and technical support, as well as the reflection and a discursive permeation of internal university procedures and processes. Dialogue and encounters with diverse people are an essential element of this.

Analogous to Gender Mainstreaming, Diversity Mainstreaming at TU Dortmund University aims to assess the impact of all decisions on the diverse members of the university and to incorporate their relevant concerns into all regular and standard processes. In the long term, this approach should lead to a sustainable cultural change and a "university for all".

The staff unit is a founding member of the German Diversity at Universities Network, whose members deal with the implementation of diversity and anti-discrimination tasks at their universities on an operational and strategic level.

In 2012, the TU Dortmund signed the Diversity Charter.

Since 16.2.2017, TU Dortmund has supported the HRK initiative for a cosmopolitan university.