Gender-equitable perspectives in structural change in Lusatia

The two TRAWOS employees Leonie Liemich (joint project "Lusatia - Life & Technology" (L&T)) and Bernadette Rohlf (ESF junior research group FioKo) are researching the advancement of women in STEM fields as well as innovative and sustainable regional development. Interviews with women in the FioKo project show that structural barriers and cultural prejudices in the STEM sector are major obstacles to equality, rather than individual skills. Nevertheless, the funding logic of the BMBF programme "WIR!" still strongly follows technical-economic value creation and marginalizes social innovations and gendered structures and values. 20 R&D projects illustrate the low presence of female researchers in important future fields such as networked energy systems and storage technologies, additive manufacturing and attractive educational, working and living environments. However, their greater participation would be important, indeed necessary, for gender-equitable and sustainable knowledge (science) production and social development as a whole! A gender-equitable perspective on regional development in Lusatia is insufficiently addressed. At the same time, the studies aim to illustrate how sustainable development could and should be supported by gender-sensitive, feminist scientific production in applied research in the coal phase-out. The research colloquium will discuss how the research results to date can be theoretically framed - for example in terms of a just transition or by incorporating ecofeminist approaches - how the findings can be incorporated into the debate on structural change and how structural change must be conceived in order to enable a gender-equitable funding policy. The event is open to the public and will take place in a hybrid format.