Equality, Diversity, and Anti-Harassment

MPI-CBG > About Us > Our Values > Equality, Diversity, and Anti-Harassment

Equal Opportunities

Anyone seeking long-term success and job satisfaction needs a stable social background. At the Max Planck Society, we care about your work-life balance and equal opportunities. We bear in mind personal circumstances that affect our employees and their partners, and make every effort within the restrictions of public funding law to put together individual packages of measures.

The Max Planck Society recognises that the demands of professional life often conflicts with home life. Therefore, we offer extensive support to employees to strike a healthy balance between the two.

The Max Planck Society offers:   

  • Childcare places in the home and in industry-wide day-care centres; contract with the service company "pme Familienservice" to arrange care (including for the elderly); financial subsidies for childcare at conferences
  • Dual-Career Service: help and care facilities for dual-career scientist couples
  • Options for part-time working and teleworking
  • Central equal opportunities commissioner and confidential counsellors in the institutes
  • Guidelines for a constructive interface between male and female scientists

The Max Planck Society is the only German scientific organization that qualifies for the non-profit-making PLC "work and family" certificate, which acknowledges its family-oriented personnel policy.

Dr. Agnes Toth-Petroczy

Gender Equality Officer

Dr. Agnes Toth-Petroczy

Gender Equality Officer
tothpet(at)mpi-cbg.de

Dr. Meritxell Huch

Deputy Gender Equality Officer

Dr. Meritxell Huch

Deputy Gender Equality Officer
huch(at)mpi-cbg.de

If you have any questions or comments regarding equal opportunities at the MPI-CBG and the CSBD, please contact the Institute’s Equal Opportunities Commissioners via
equalopportunities(at)mpi-cbg.de

Handling Sexual harassment, Mobbing, Discrimination

All people (staff and guests) at MPI-CBG have access to resources and advice regarding harassment, mobbing and discrimination (collectively referred to as ‘incidents’). A few of the guiding principles are summarized in bullet point form here:

  • All allegations and reports of incidents maintain complete confidentiality and anonymity of the person reporting the incident will be protected.
  • No action whatsoever will be taken unless approved and expressly agreed to by the victim. In other words, reporting an incident does not trigger a chain of events over which the victim has no control. Further steps are taken only with the agreement of and in consultation with the victim
  • Each incident is treated on a case-by-case basis with sensitivity and the subsequent actions are considered carefully and with fairness and with consultation with the victim. 
  • If the incident involves someone who is not in the reporting line nor a supervisor of the victim of such incident, the immediate supervisor of the victim may be the most appropriate person from whom to seek advice or to whom to report the incident
  • If the incident involves someone who is in the reporting line or a supervisor of the victim of such incident the most appropriate persons from whom to seek advice or to whom to report the incident are, the Ombudsperson for issues related to research integrity, the Gender Equality Officer for issues related to sexual harassment, discrimination and family the person-of-trust for mobbing, bullying or harassment
  • All directors and the COO at MPI-CBG are available and committed to provide advice or support for further reporting the incident on request of the victim
  • The HR Department is available at any time to provide advice and guidance
  • MPI-CBG strongly encourages anyone who feels they may have been a victim of an incident (even if they are not sure if the experience qualifies as an incident) to come forward and report the incident to someone whom they feel comfortable approaching (whoever it may be) since only by so doing can MPI-CBG uphold this core value to ensure that every person at MPI-CBG is treated with dignity and respect 

Further information and resources (including central resources provided by the Max Planck Society) are available here: