Gender mainstreaming and diversity management

Our gender mainstreaming (GM) and diversity management (DM) measures are guided by the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna Strategy 2025, which sets the goals of educating responsible specialists and management professionals and opening up exciting career opportunities for our graduates.

Intercultural competence and the ability to work effectively in increasingly diverse and international environments are among the skills frequently identified by employers and academic experts as being vital for the future. The development of these skills is an integral part of the curriculums of all of our degree programmes and is also promoted by our GM and DM principles, which are embedded throughout the university’s operations.

We are also committed to ensuring permeability in education and training and equal opportunities. This forms the basis for principles related to gender equality and the advancement of women. As a result of our gender mainstreaming measures, at UAS BFI Vienna people of all genders should have the same professional, cultural, material and psychosocial development opportunities in accordance with the relevant legal frameworks and with their qualifications, in their actual and lived experiences.

We are also committed to creating a discrimination-free and respectful working and study environment for everyone at the university. All members of the university should have the opportunity to realise their full potential regardless of their diversity characteristics.

UAS BFI Vienna is committed to pursuing a proactive diversity management approach. In our view, this incorporates a systematic awareness, recognition, understanding, anticipation and consideration of the needs and potential arising from differences and shared characteristics, which is underpinned by moral and ethical principles as well as our goal of effectively harnessing diversity to help achieve the university’s objectives.

Our commitment to non-discrimination and proactive diversity management contributes to ensuring a strong democracy in which social equality and equal opportunities can be realised in practice.

The university’s GM and DM efforts are focused on achieving objectives in our three core areas of activity: (1) communication, structures and processes, (2) teaching and learning, and (3) research and development.

These areas determine the target groups for our GM and DM activities: our teaching, research and administrative staff, part-time lecturers, and students.

With regard to the dimensions of diversity that we address, besides the basic aspects established by anti-discrimination legislation (sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and culture), we also consider other characteristics such as family status, social background and the organisational forms of our degree programmes.

The university employs an intersectional approach in this respect, which emphasises that specifying diversity characteristics is a matter of understanding them in terms of how they interact with each other and change over time, and within the specific context, rather than producing an exhaustive list.

Alongside the university’s Gender and Diversity Officer, the GM and DM Steering Committee is responsible for developing, monitoring and implementing the defined objectives in the areas of activity described above. The members of the GM and DM Steering Committee come from a range of disciplines and report to the University Management.

As a university, it is important to us that we create the best possible conditions for all members of the university to successfully combine work, university study and home life, and offer support services, degree programmes and individual solutions that help to achieve this. The approaches we have employed and action we have taken were endorsed when our hochschuleundfamilie certification was renewed in 2018 and 2021.

All cases are handled confidentially. To discuss gender and diversity-related matters, as well as female students’ issues, please contact:

• Angelika Groh, Officer for Female Students’ Issues, angelika.groh@fh-vie.ac.at, Tel: +43 (0)1 72012 8613
• Marion Rosshap, Gender and Diversity Office, marion.rosshap@fh-vie.ac.at, Tel: +43 (0)1 72012 86911

For enquiries about hochschuleundfamilie certification, please e-mail Sabine Gössl-Böhm (Head of HR Management) at sabine.goessl@fh-vie.ac.at