Equal opportunity commissioners for technical and administrative staff

The equal opportunity commissioners

• are involved in HR development measures including staff development throughout the technical and administrative staff area;
• participate in committee meetings and conferences on the topic of equality within and outside the City of Hamburg;
• are involved in the development of equality measures;
• participate in updating the Equal Opportunity Plan for their area;
• provide advice on gender-related equality issues and on balancing work and family; and
• see diversity and digitization as formative challenges for the future of Universität Hamburg and are actively involved in shaping these topics.

Equal opportunity commissioners are appointed by the University for four years. The appointment is preceded by a declaration of interest procedure in which all employees shall be heard prior to the appointment.

Universities’ equal opportunity mandate derives from various statutes.

• The basis for equal opportunity work is Article 3, particularly Section 2 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany (Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland).
  “Men and women shall have equal rights. The state shall promote the actual implementation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist.”
• Individual rights and duties follow from the General Act on Equal Treatment (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, AGG).
• The equal opportunity mandate for universities is stipulated in the Hamburg higher education act (Hamburgisches Hochschulgesetz, HmbHG), in particular in Section 3 subsection 5.
• Hamburg’s statutes on equal opportunity in public service (Hamburgisches Gleichstellungsgesetz, HmbGleiG) comprehensively set forth the office’s equal opportunity mandate and the equal opportunity commissioner’s rights and duties.