Regensburg honors women: Prize for science and art awarded!

Regensburg honors women: Prize for science and art awarded!

On May 21, 2025, two outstanding female scientists were awarded the Regensburg Prize for Women in Science and Art in the city of Regensburg. This prize is awarded every two years and is intended to promote excellent scientific and artistic achievements by women. The award ceremony took place in the Historical Reichssaal and was personally conducted by Regensburg's mayor Gertrud Maltz-Schwarzfischer. Loud uni-regensburg.de The prize is endowed with a total of 15,000 euros, which will be used to support the award winners' projects.

The first award went to PD Dr. med. Stephanie Kandsperger, who was honored for her habilitation thesis “Psychiatric emergency care for children and adolescents: results from clinical health services research”. Kandsperger, who works as a senior physician at the Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Regensburg, has made significant progress in the emergency psychiatric care of young patients with her work, which is also relevant to health policy.

Prize winners in focus

The second award went to Dr.-Ing. Andrea Reindl from OTH Regensburg. Her dissertation entitled “Decentralized Battery Management System for Improved Reliability and Optimized Battery Operation” dealt with the decentralized control of battery systems and was developed in cooperation with the Technical University of Berlin. This work sets new standards in battery research and has great potential for the development of sustainable energy systems.

The jury responsible for awarding the prize consists of various decision-makers, including the mayor, the advisor for economics, science and research and the rectors of Regensburg's universities. This composition is intended to ensure that diverse perspectives are incorporated into the selection of the award winners. An evaluation by expert advisors can also take place, whereby the jury can define changing scientific or artistic areas in order to always address current topics, such as regensburg.de reported.

The context of equality in science

The awards are part of a larger framework that aims to promote the visibility and recognition of women in science and the arts. Attention is drawn to the problem of the so-called “leaky pipeline”, where the proportion of women in higher academic positions at universities is decreasing significantly. Statistics show that the proportion of women among doctoral students is 46%, while it is only 29% among professors. This is where the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is launching initiatives, which, however, will only be fully effective in the coming years. The aim is to substantially improve equality and increase the proportion of women in MINT areas, such as bmbf.de highlights.

To promote equality, the BMBF has launched various programs such as the female professor program, which has been in its fourth phase since 2023. The Pact for Research and Innovation in Europe also supports these efforts. It remains to be seen what specific impact the current measures will have on future generations of female scientists.