A fascination for research — Sixty-nine girls explore GSI/FAIR on Girls’ Day 2026
23.04.2026 |
Girls’Day at GSI/FAIR was again a huge success this year. Sixty-nine schoolgirls aged eleven to seventeen participated and explored the international research center, the accelerator facilities and experiments, as well as the technical infrastructure. Girls’Day is a nationwide event designed to encourage girls to learn about careers where women have traditionally been underrepresented.
The girls were welcomed by the organizing Public Relations department and by Sandra Müller, Head of Financial Performance & Sourcing Management. Subsequently, they took a campus tour to visit the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR), the medical research facility, and the large-scale detector HADES, and marveled at the vast FAIR construction site from the observation deck.
They then split into small groups to learn more about the various professions and fields of work on campus. This year, these included research work in materials science, atomic physics, and biophysics, as well as various professions in the technical and infrastructure departments such as ion sources, beam diagnostics, electronics, engineering, workshops, the target laboratory, cryogenics, vacuum systems, technology transfer, and IT. In a special FAIR construction program, some of the girls were also able to gain insight into construction activities at the large-scale construction site.
“GSI and FAIR offer a wide variety of career paths, from apprenticeships to university studies, which require qualified specialists,” says Sandra Müller. “With Girls’Day, we want to spark girls’ interest in technical careers and get them excited about GSI and FAIR as employers. We encourage all participants to apply to us later if they enjoyed Girls’Day—for an internship, vocational training, as working students, or even for their bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral thesis.”
“Every year, we’re overjoyed by the incredible response to our Girls’Day offer. Demand is enormous, and spots fill up in no time. This shows the attractiveness the program and also the great interest girls have in the exciting fields of work here,” reports organizer Carola Pomplun, a physicist in the Public Relations department at GSI and FAIR. “The small groups give an opportunity to get a firsthand look at the professions on campus, learn about various jobs, and ask the supervisors about their daily work. Often the girls also craft something they can take home with them. A huge thank you goes out to all our supervisors, whose extraordinary dedication makes this unique insight possible for the girls.”
Girls’Day is a day of action all over Germany. On this day, businesses, universities, and other institutions all over Germany open their doors to schoolgirls from class level 5 and above. The participants learn about courses of study and training in professions in the areas of IT, natural sciences, and technology — areas in which women have rarely been employed in the past. GSI and — since its foundation — also FAIR have been participating in the annual event since the early days of Girls’Day.
