The Silent Scandal - Power Abuse and Corruption by Design in German Research (eh22)

Female PhD students "disciplined" with a cane by their professor - absurd? Female professors losing their positions under dubious circumstances following questionable investigations - illegal, surely? Victim support services silencing the very people they’re meant to protect - unthinkable? Cases like these - just as recently published in SPIEGEL and Deutsche Welle - occasionally make headlines, often to be dismissed as isolated incidents. What if they point to a deeper, systemic issue within German scientific institutions? This talk examines structural weaknesses, governance failures, and the patterns behind power abuse in academia. We will dive into the inner workings of a system engineered to protect abusers rather than the abused or the public interest. Through three in-depth and well documented case studies, we illustrate how unchecked authority, entrenched discrimination, and wasted taxpayer money permeate every level of a major German research organization. The so-called “governance” not only fails to address these abuses but actively sustains them. All mechanisms meant to protect and ensure integrity have fallen short: self-regulation is toothless, political oversight - particularly from the BMBF - is absent, and media coverage mostly fails to spark change. What are we, as a society, willing to accept in the guise of academic freedom? Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ about this event: https://cfp.eh22.easterhegg.eu/eh22/talk/G3M9AG/