Step by step: What motivates Mireille van Poppel as a scientist and vice-rector

Mireille van Poppel is a medical biologist and professor at the Department for Human Movement Sciences, Sport and Health. Photo: Uni Graz/Kanizaj

Improving people's health and eliminating inequalities: Mireille van Poppel pursues these goals both as a public health researcher and as vice-rector for Internationalisation and Equality. In both roles, she pays particular attention to individual needs.

It starts in primary school. “On average, boys are more active than girls,” says Mireille van Poppel. And women tend to remain less active, especially during pregnancy and periods when they have a lot of care responsibilities, explains the medical biologist. Men tend to prefer performance- or competition-oriented sports activities, but they are often difficult to motivate to engage in everyday exercise. “A few years ago, a campaign to walk 10,000 steps a day was launched in Queensland, Australia,” recalls van Poppel. However, it was mainly women who took part in the campaign. ‘Of course, these are generalisations. On an individual level, the motivation to be physically active can be very different,’ adds the researcher. This is also the challenge for public health: on the one hand, addressing the entire population, and on the other hand, individualising programmes according to needs and situations.

Balancing differences

As Vice-Rector for Internationalisation and Equality, tailor-made solutions are also a key concern for Mireille van Poppel: "Women do not form a homogeneous group. They are at different stages of life, have different working environments and different needs." These factors also include aspects of diversity. "In recent years, many teams have succeeded in balancing gender differences and breaking down exclusionary mechanisms," says van Poppel, pointing to successes.

In general, women at the University of Graz are on the fast track: with 62 per cent female students, two-thirds female graduates and 57 per cent female employees, they make up the majority in many areas. While three of six faculties are headed by female deans – Katharina Pyschny (Catholic Theology), Gabriele Schmölzer (law) and Andrea Steiner (environmental, regional and educational sciences) – there is still room for improvement at the departments, where just under a third of the heads are women. Women have caught up significantly in the last 25 years in terms of professorships: in 2000, they accounted for six per cent, but this figure has now risen to over 36 per cent.

Andreas Schweiger

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