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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 conferred for projects and academic work completed no more than two years ago. In exceptional cases, the prize can be awarded to projects at the University of Freiburg that are currently running or in development (e.g. conferences, panel events) and that can only be realised with the help of the prize money.

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, or innovative measures to improve the living, studying and working conditions at the University in terms of equality and diversity.

Call for applications 2025

The application deadline for this year’s Bertha Ottenstein Prize is 13 April 2025. Proposals and applications should be sent to the office of the Permanent Senate Commission on Equal Opportunity, Felix Wittenzellner. The application form and optional supplementary documents must be submitted. The exact modalities can be found in the call for applications.
Candidates can be nominated or apply themselves. The Bertha Ottenstein Prize is awarded by the Senate on the recommendation of the Permanent Senate Commission on Equal Opportunity. The award ceremony is open to all members of the university.