Working@TH Köln – Experience Academia

There is still room for improvement in terms of diversity within academia. In 2022, for example, 52% of first-year students were female, while only 28% of professorships were held by women. To counteract this as early as possible, TH Köln has launched the "Working@TH Köln - Experience Academia" program for student assistants (SHK for short).

About the program

With the final intake in the winter semester of 2025/26, the program came to a close as scheduled. No further cycles are currently planned.

Info

"Working@TH Köln – Experience Academia“ was a measure from the "Improving Recruitment" sub-project of the PLan_CV project.

The program and its goals

“Working@TH Köln – Experience Academia” brought students and professors together. Students were hired as research and teaching assistants. In the process, they expanded their academic skills, learned about possible career paths in science and gained an insight into the career profile of the professorship at a university of applied sciences.

Diversity is an essential part of TH Köln's self-image and is seen as indispensable for social justice and equal opportunities. At the same time, diversity is seen as a source of innovation and creativity that has a positive influence on cooperation. In the context of Working@TH Köln, we understood diversity as the diverse composition of a group of people. Diverse composition means that people differ in terms of their gender identification (male, female, non-binary, inter*, trans), their nationality or their educational background, for example.

The various diversity dimensions have an influence on the advantages and disadvantages people have and we wanted to counteract this with Working@TH Cologne. We have listed some of these diversity dimensions here in alphabetical order, but there are many more:

+ Diversity dimensions

Further information on the dimensions listed and other relevant terms

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

(Dis-)Ability
Age
Appearance and size
Care Work (e.g. for children, parents)
Class
Educational background
Gender
Migration background
Nationality
Physical and mental health
Race
Religion and ideology
Sexual orientation

“Working@TH Köln – Experience Academia” is part of the project “Rethinking professorial careers at universities of applied sciences: Collaboration and networking” (PLan_CV). Its goal: Finding excellent candidates for professorial careers at TH Köln, and achieving greater permeability between the academic world and the business sector. The project’s budget of 12.4 million euros is funded through the Federal Ministry of Education and Research program to attract and qualify professorial staff for universities of applied sciences.