On December 18, the Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender Studies (MvBZ) at Freie Universität Berlin will once again participate in Science Day #4GenderStudies. The initiative was launched in 2017 by the gender studies community to highlight the diversity, relevance, and scientific excellence of #gender studies—especially in light of public disparagement and attacks on the field.

Gender studies is anchored in numerous subjects at Freie Universität Berlin. Its diversity and complexity are reflected in different disciplinary approaches and perspectives. The range of questions and methods used to research gender relations varies depending on the subject. The projects are linked by their critical and self-reflective approaches to science and their focus on socially relevant topics.

The MvBZ aims to raise awareness of these projects. In the video series “Gender Studies at the FU Berlin,” researchers from various subjects and disciplines introduce themselves:
https://www.mvbz.fu-berlin.de/en/wissenschaftskommunikation/videoreihe-geschlechterforschung-an-der-fu-berlin/index.html 

The “Gender Studies Data Collection” also helps to raise the profile of researchers at different stages of their careers and to connect them with each other. Filter and search functions can be used to search specifically for researchers and projects in the field of gender studies:
https://mvbz.org/?lang=en 

In addition, various research projects and activities were carried out or continued at the MvBZ in 2025, including:
• The international symposium funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, organized by
Dr. Heike Pantelmann, Dr. Sarah Bellows-Blakely, Dr. Sabina García Peter, and Prof. Ebere Adimora: “Unheard, Unseen, and Unspoken: Setting a Research Agenda for Sexual Harassment and Violence in Higher Education” https://www.mvbz.fu-berlin.de/en/ueber-uns/dokumentation-eigener-veranstaltungen/20250917-19_symposium_vws/index.html
• The BUA junior research group “Fixing the System: Analyses in the Context of the History of Science” (led by Dr. Sarah Bellows-Blakely), which continued its work and recruited Anne-Marie Harrison as a doctoral student to study the history of institutional responses to sexual harassment at Berlin universities since the mid-20th century.

Video about the project: https://youtu.be/zMHkQlLL8fU 
Poster about the project: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17083806 

• The SFB/TRR subproject “Dynamics of the Reproduction Economy: Forms of Appropriation in Global Fertility Chains,” an interdisciplinary research project (led by Dr. Susanne Lettow in cooperation with Stefanie Graefe, FSU Jena), which will be carried out from January 2025 in the second funding phase of the Collaborative Research Center/Transregio “Structural Change of Property”:
https://sfb294-eigentum.de/en/subprojects-old/dynamiken-der-reproduktionsokonomie/ 

More about the #4GenderStudies Science Day:
https://www.mvbz.fu-berlin.de/en/wissenschaftskommunikation/wissenschaftstag_4genderstudies/index.html 
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbzv5g-6iik&list=PLqiyv4YjL2YLjPrz9eh0iR44pUaGzu5Ya&index=7 

In 2026, we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of #4GenderStudies Science Day – gender studies is and remains a central, critical, and empirically based science – indispensable for understanding social transformation processes!