On 11 February, we began our #PushingTheBoundaries series with a reflection on meritocracy and the gap between how academia sees itself and what data across Europe continues to show.
In the weeks since, we have highlighted the perspectives of female professors within QuantumFrontiers. Their research and experiences are part of a broader conversation about responsibility, visibility and structural conditions in science.
Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. For over a century, it has marked the fight for equality – a struggle that continues, and a reminder that formal equality does not automatically create equitable conditions. It is an invitation to reflect on the structures that still shape opportunity and power. So let us also look at our own structures:
Women currently hold 16% of professorships in QuantumFrontiers. Across all career stages, they remain underrepresented. These figures are not isolated to one cluster or institution and not at all the result of individual deficits. They reflect structural patterns within academia as a whole – in hiring, evaluation criteria, networking, informal sponsorship and access to influence.
Change does not happen automatically. Structures persist unless we examine them and actively reshape procedures, criteria, and decision-making.
In QuantumFrontiers, women are now strongly represented in leadership and central decision-making bodies. This does not immediately alter overall representation. But it shifts power, who defines priorities and who designs procedures.
These questions also shape how we think about research itself. With the our research area Sharing Science, we broaden our perspective to participation, educational equality and science communication. Projects such as a regional learning ecosystem (Prof. Henriette Bertram (TUBS), Prof. Till Bruckermann (LUH) grounded in equality and sustainability, Mathematical Modelling Camps (Prof. Katrin Vorhölter (TUBS)) focusing on marginalised groups, and Explaining Science training programmes (Prof. Stefanie Hartz (TUBS), Prof. Rainer Müller (TUBS), Prof. Christoph Kulgemeyer (Uni Bremen)) treat access to science not as an add-on, but as part of research culture. These projects underline that who enters scientific spaces – and under which conditions – is part of the same structural conversation.
Our focus is not on short-term visibility, but on structural change: transparent processes, attention to early career stages, better everyday practices, and a critical examination of how excellence is defined – and whom existing definitions systematically privilege.
Looking at our own numbers is part of our accountability. Persistent underrepresentation is not simply a statistical gap. It raises fundamental questions about fairness, access, and the kind of research culture we choose to build.
8 March is a reminder that structural change – within our cluster and within academia at large – remains an ongoing responsibility.
