To path indicator To navigation To quick access To footer with other services
To content
The logo of the Social Research Centre Dortmund
Department of Social Sciences
Studierende sitzt am Arbeitsplatz und schaut auf den Laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund

Christine Best is attending the Menstruation Research Conference 2026 on behalf of the sfs

Photo: Christine Best is standing in a lecture hall. Her presentation is being projected onto a screen. © Henrike Langer
From 7th to 8th July, sfs researcher Christine Best took part in this year’s Menstruation Research Conference at the University of Sussex in Brighton (United Kingdom), where she presented both her doctoral thesis project and the research project ‘PETRA-AI: AI-supported, educational therapy support for perimenopause’.

In her presentation, Christine Best outlined the conceptual framework of her doctoral thesis and presented preliminary research findings. The doctoral project “Menstruality in the workplace: (in)visibilities and practices of agency” lies at the intersection of gender studies and the sociology of work and is supervised by Prof. Dr Mona Motakef at TU Dortmund University. As part of the project, working people are interviewed about their subjective experiences of menstruation in the context of their employment. The individual cases are analysed using qualitative-reconstructive methods of social research. The presentation, entitled “Menstrual Wellbeing in the Workplace: Subjective Experiences, Coping Practices, and Organisational Gaps”, was part of the conference session “Menstrual Health, Mental Health and Wellbeing”.

Together with her colleague Henrike Langer (Ruhr University Bochum), Christine Best also presented a poster on the project she leads, ‘PETRA-AI: AI-supported, educational therapy support for perimenopause’. The PETRA-AI project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space over a period of three years.

The Menstruation Research Conference is the world’s largest conference on menstrual research. This year, participants from 66 countries came together. A key conclusion of the conference was that there are still significant gaps in research and provision within gender-specific healthcare. Neither menstruation nor the perimenopause should be viewed as purely individual problems to be dealt with alone. Rather, there is a need for structural solutions in various areas of society, such as the workplace and educational institutions like schools and universities. Appropriate measures and policies could help to close existing gaps in care and ensure that the health needs of those affected are structurally taken into account at different stages of life.

Back