The ESF junior research group FioKo - Promotion of women through individual and organizational skills in education and work (MINT), project management: Prof. Maja Dshemuchadse and Prof. Raj Kollmorgen) aims to investigate the underrepresentation of women in the MINT sector in Saxony and to formulate recommendations for action to promote equal participation of all genders. Various areas are included: Education (from primary to vocational school to university studies and scientific careers), entrepreneurship and professional development and the social context of women's advancement.

As a research assistant, Bernadette Rohlf is working on the systemic analysis of the context of women's advancement in order to identify effective leverage points for organizational action and derive appropriate measures. To this end, she uses the Soft Systems Methodology developed by Peter Checkland. In cooperation with various stakeholders from the higher education STEM sector, models of the system are to be created and serve as a basis for discussion for a solution-oriented dialog with the respective stakeholders. Qualitative methods will be used to develop the attitudes, experiences and positions of the interviewees and to map individual perspectives.

In the colloquium, we will present our perspective on the research field and our research plan and hope for an intensive discussion on both methodological and content-related questions. In particular, the soft systems method will be presented as a method that is very little known in the social sciences and psychology in Germany in order to discuss its applicability to questions of social transformation.