Munich-Centre for Advanced Photonics

MAP female promotion programme

Marie Curie with her children, far right the later Nobel prize winner Irene Joliot-Curie.

While the proportion of students and graduates has strongly been increasing in recent years, many women scientists drop off the career ladder. On average only 11,5 % of the professors at both Munich universities are female.

The situation is even more severe in the natural sciences, and especially so in the field of physics, which traditionally is a domain dominated by male scientist. The physics-oriented MAP cluster therefore formulated several goals to support female scientists:

  • The cluster aims at achieving a proportion of 30 % female scientists.
  • Female project leaders, postdocs and PhD students shall actively be supported.
  • An atmosphere of mutual respect has to be developed and maintained.


To achieve these goals, the following tasks are undertaken:

  • Disclosure of proportion of female applicants and their success in all job application procedures
  • Presence of a qualified female professor (in addition to the mandatory ombudsperson for women) in nomination committees, if necessary from another university
  • At least two female members on each Board or Committee.
  • Exemption from other duties for the ombudsperson / equal opportunity officer.
  • Active encouragement of female chairpersons and speakers in meetings, favoured invitations of female speakers and guest scientists from abroad.
  • Mandatory tutorials and seminars for PhD students to promote young scientists (female and male).
  • Cooperation with High Schools, internships for High School students, open-lab-days etc. to improve interest in natural sciences (in male and female pupils); participation in Girls Days of the Munich Universities...
  • Family-friendly scheduling of meetings (no evening or late afternoon dates).

All tasks undertaken are listed in detail in the Leitet Herunterladen der Datei einMAP-FFN.

Please refer to Öffnet ein Fenster zum Versenden der E-MailAnna Friedl with questions and hints.

to top print