Diversity at HU

Students and staff at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin include people from all age groups. Even within the student body, there is considerable diversity when it come to age: In 2016, 81 percent of students in Germany were between 20 and 30 years old, while 10 percent were 31 or more years old. As the survey "Diversity at HU" in 2019 showed, about a quarter of respondents had experienced or witnessed age-based discrimination at HU at least once.

People who decide to take up studies after having followed a different professional pathway are often in a different phase of their lives compared to younger students. As a result, they regularly have to negotiate their studies with other duties such as wagework or care responsibilities.

At HU, the Crossover - Centre for people with vocational qualifications offers counselling directed at prospective students seeking university adminition based on their professional qualification. Pensioners who wish to pursue further academic training after their career may attend university classes as guest students or use the offers of the senior citizen university.

Supporting young researchers across all steps of the academic career

With its programme on the active promotion of young researchers, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin aims to attract young talent to an academic career and additional scientific qualification at HU. This programme focusses especially on supporting transitions between each stage of the career, from PhD to Postdoc onto professorship. It includes, amongst others, the Humboldt Research Track Scholarship for excellent students wishing to pursue a PhD and a tenure track concept for the Junior Professorship.

A good work environment for every age

Within its workforce, the university actively works towards building mixed-ages teams. Working together among different age groups facilitates a transfer of knowledge between younger and older staff and increases diversity as well as team performance.

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has the mission of providing working conditions to all staff that meet their age related needs. For this reason, HU supports its staff with occupational health promotion activities and encourages their development through continuing vocational training. For further questions regarding age-appropriate working conditions such as part-time employment, you may contact the staff council or the personnel department.

Further HU resources

Institutional strategy on the promotion of young researchers [English]
www.exzellenz-initiative.hu-berlin.de/en/institutional-strategy/young-researchers

Guest student programme [English]
www.hu-berlin.de/en/studies/counselling/leaflets/guest_students

Crossover - Centre for people with vocational qualifications [German]
www.hu-berlin.de/de/studium/beratung/crossover/crossover

HU staff council [German]
vertretungen.hu-berlin.de/de/personalrat

Work agreement on part-time work [German]
vertretungen.hu-berlin.de/de/personalrat/dienstvereinbarungen/dv-teilz_html

Humboldt children's university [German]
www.hu-berlin.de/de/pr/veranstaltungen/regelmaessige-veranstaltungen/kinderuni

External resources

Senior citizen university [German]
www.proseniores-berlin.de