Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Postfach 10 10 62, 80084 München

To the scientific members
via e-mail

01.08.2018

Dear Colleagues,
Recent media reports on bullying and harassment at our Institutes are harming
the reputation of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. We all agree not to tolerate
harassment of any kind or sexualized misconduct within our Society. The
excellence of our Institutes’ research should be reflected in adequate and respectful leadership within our organization.
We already have a reporting system in place in our society. However, there is
reason to believe that our internal reporting lines such as ombudspersons, zentrale Gleichstellungsbeauftragte (central equal opportunities commissioner) or
Betriebsrat (works council) are frequently not well enough known and therefore
not being used adequately, in particular not by our young scientists. The scientific staff is reluctant to make disclosures within the societal structures, as they
fear negative consequences for their career.
I believe that it is of the utmost importance to improve this situation as quickly
as possible. We need clear and trustful reporting lines and we must communicate these lines in a transparent and accessible way. As a first step, the central
Communications Department will approach the local PR Officers and Heads of
Administration at your Institutes as well as the leadership of central facilities
and Max Planck Research Units in the days to come. They will ask them to
publish the relevant information on the already existing reporting lines on the
respective Institute’s website. Please support your PR Officers and Heads of
Administration in making this information known within the Institutes. Furthermore, I consider it crucial that new employees will be informed of these reporting lines as well as of the relevant websites.
...
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V., Hofgartenstraße 8, 80539 München
Postfach 10 10 62, 80084 München, Deutschland, Tel. +49 89 2108-1211, Fax -1112, E-Mail: praesident@gv.mpg.de

 In to the mternal reporting hnes the law firm --

_has been mandated as additional polnt of contact outside the Maxi
for all employees of our Institutes. Employees may contact
this law firm In cases of mappropnate behaviour such as mobbing, harassment,
sexuallzed mlsconduct, the meaning ofthe General Act on
Equal Treatment [Allgememes 

-- and be as trusted contact per
sons -- Their role IS to receive 
and/or complaints from employees concerned and to prov.de an assessment
whether these could be of legal relevance. It IS exclusively up to the employees
to decide whether mrormatlon be passed on to the Managing Dlrector or to
the leadership of the Moreover, these trusted contact
persons are obllged to keep confidentlallty about the employee's If the
latter so wlshes.

The trusted contact persons can be reached by either telephone or email and
also be avallable for personal discussion:

In I have set up a task force under the of--
This task force shall elaborate steps In order to Improve the reporting lines
harassment and sexuallzed misconduct In the MPG.

 

Furthermore, the task force shall organize, With professional support, a SDCletyr
Wide survey about the status of sexualized misconduct and harassment. We
want to know if the events that have ta ken place at a few institutes are Isolated
cases or if we are dealing With structural problems that also exist at other Inr
stitutes. The task force analyze the survey results and develop recommenr
dations as to what consequences we should draw.

Apart from - other members of the task force are scientific members

of each  (--
-- as well as the central Gender

Equality Officer and representatives of the Administrative Headquarters.

--Will do the coordination on the side of the Administrative

Headquarters. As guests the Chairman of the General Works Council and the
Spokeswoman for the Network Will participate.

I would appreciate your support in these important matters. You are welcome
to forward your experiences or input to the aboveimentioned tasks to me or to

Vours sincerely,

 

Martin Stratmann