Project leader: Prof. Dr. Martina Erlemann

Research assistant: Andrea Bossmann

Student assistants: Carl-Levi Reuter, Lisa-Marie Rudek

Quantum technologies are key technologies of the future. With their broad fields of application, they contribute to solving central social challenges and thus to the sustainable and future-oriented development of our society. However, equal participation of highly qualified women in quantum technologies has not yet been achieved, as women are still strongly underrepresented in those STEM subjects that lead to research and development activities in quantum technologies, such as physics, computer science and some engineering sciences. In addition, the women who are active as high performers and high potentials in quantum technologies are less visible than their male colleagues. This lack of visibility affects both internal visibility and recognition in the scientific community, expressed, for example, through awards or high-ranking leadership positions, as well as external visibility in public, business, politics and the media.
We research the mechanisms that lead to and sustain the invisibility of women in quantum technologies and translate our findings into internal and external visibility strategies with the participation of successful female leaders, high performers and high potentials and their networks. Our aim is to develop effective and sustainable strategies and recommendations for action at a structural level to strengthen and improve the visibility of women in quantum technologies both within and outside the field.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the grant number 01 FP24061.

The project cooperates with the meta-IFiF meta project, which networks all projects of the BMBF funding guideline “Innovative Women in Focus”.