Birgit Rönnpagel knows almost everyone who is hired at the Thünen Institute.  As Equal Opportunity Commissioner, one of her most important tasks is to ensure that all applicants are treated equally in job interviews. The workgroup manager now has more than 20 years of experience as an Equal Opportunity Commissioner at the Thünen Institute, in addition to her main job at the Center for Information Management.

What has changed during this time? "Unfortunately little, women are still underrepresented in senior positions at the Thünen Institute," says Birgit Rönnpagel. There are many reasons for this: work-life balance, part-time work and the fact that women are less likely than men to apply for management positions. Birgit Rönnpagel and her deputy want to discuss this and other topics with the Thünen Institute's female employees in various workshops from fall 2024 and develop ideas on how job advertisements can be made more women-friendly and how potential female applicants can be encouraged to take on management responsibility. Together with a gender equality plan for the Thünen Institute, which provides for concrete measures to promote gender equality and is to be updated shortly, Birgit Rönnpagel hopes that the underrepresentation of women can be visibly reduced in the coming years.

In order to encourage women not to leave leadership positions to men, she and other equal opportunities officers have initiated a series of talks presenting women in leadership positions. In interviews, they talk about their personal journeys, obstacles and supporters. The next event is on February 28 at 10 a.m. with Dr. Janine Pelikan, Deputy Director of the Thünen Institute for Market Analysis. Registrations by e-mail to: gleichstellungsbeauftragte@thuenen.de