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Equity, Diversity and Academic Personnel Development
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Bertha Ottenstein Prize

The University of Freiburg awards the annual Bertha Ottenstein Prize, which is endowed with EUR 5,000. The prize is intended to honour and support innovative projects and structural measures to promote gender equality, as well as outstanding achievements in the field of gender and diversity studies.

Bertha Ottenstein

The Bertha Ottenstein Prize can be awarded only to individual members, groups of members or organisational units of the university. It can be conferred for projects and academic work completed or submitted no more than two years ago.

Due to the history of the Bertha Ottenstein Prize as a prize for the advancement of women, all submissions should explicitly incorporate gender as a dimension of diversity.

In particular, initiatives by students, researchers and/or employees in the following areas can be honoured:

  • Outstanding academic achievements in the field of gender and diversity studies,
  • Teaching concepts and seminars, training and further education programmes that integrate gender equality and diversity in an intersectional manner and stimulate awareness-raising processes,
  • Network development, event or exhibition organisation on gender and diversity topics,
  • Structural measures for promoting equality and diversity, e.g. recruitment and personnel development measures to increase the proportion of women at career stages where women are currently underrepresented,
  • Innovative measures to improve the living, studying and working conditions at the University in terms of equality and diversity.

Call for applications 2026

The call for applications for this year’s Bertha Ottenstein Prize is open until 19 April 2026.
Candidates can be nominated or apply themselves. To apply, please complete the application form (download application form). Nominations and applications along with relevant documents should be sent by 19 April 2026 to the office of the Permanent Senate Commission on Equal Opportunity, Felix Wittenzellner: felix.wittenzellner@zv.uni-freiburg.de. At least one review is required for scientific papers!

The Senate will decide on the award at its meeting on 24 June, based on a recommendation from the Permanent Senate Commission on Equal Opportunity. The Bertha Ottenstein Prize will be awarded publicly at the university.