Towards our goals together
Networks make us strong
The idea that doctoral students sit all alone at their desks or do lonely research in the lab is widespread. But wrongly so. Science is a living thing, research takes place in dialogues and exchanges with others, and the range of tasks involved is wide and varied. Doctoral students are only alone if they don’t look to the right or the left of them.
A body representing doctoral students was set up at the University of Münster in 2015 and is affiliated to the General Students' Committee (AStA). Our tasks involve not only representing PhD students in University politics, but also organising social and cross-discipline events. Regular get-togethers and “writing evenings” take place every two weeks, and the most important tip we can give is: get networked! Anyone who gets linked up to like-minded people across all the disciplines will secure a good start for themselves and increase the chances of the qualification phase proceeding more successfully.
When they embark on their research, a lot of doctoral students feel as if they’re in an information vacuum – which leads to uncertainly and frustration. How do you get started on a PhD? You have to choose your topic, find a supervisor and get the question of funding sorted out. What order do you tackle these things in? At the beginning, what is often missing is an overview of the subject area, and subject-specific information is sometimes hard to come by or not easy to understand. What is expected of me? Who can I turn to for help? Mostly, all these things only get sorted out in the course of the PhD being done. In the worst-case scenario, you waste valuable time and lose nerve.
Practically every doctoral student experiences crises while they’re working on their PhD. Sometimes the project is the cause (assumptions turn out to be wrong, or equipment doesn’t work), at other times a crisis results from the challenge for students to motivate themselves or get themselves organised. In other cases, crises are the result of systemic problems. What can happen, for example, is that funding doesn’t last as long as the average time needed for a PhD. Also, the relationship with the supervisor can be problematic. For these reasons we welcome the setting-up of a project group at the University of Münster on the subject of “Abuses of power in research” – which is closely related to the unequal balance of power between supervisor and doctoral student. It can result in an unjustified appropriation of co-authorships in publications, in obstructing access to research data, or in an unfair distribution of resources for taking part in conferences. As representatives of doctoral students, we are involved in the project group, and we are confident that we will be able to help protect PhD students from falling into such traps in the future.
As members of the newly established Federal Association of Doctoral Students e.V. (Bundesverband Promovierende e.V.), we strongly advocate a new, improved version of the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (a law which regulates fixed-term employment contracts and working conditions in the academic sector in Germany), as the current draft proposal for reforming it does not adequately meet the requirements for better conditions of employment. One big problem is the average length of time needed for a PhD – six years – while the draft proposal stipulates a minimum duration for employment contracts of only three years. This timeframe is generally too short to complete a doctorate – which often results in students getting trapped in a succession of fixed-term employment contracts, or having funding difficulties, or abandoning their PhD altogether. We call for the duration of contracts to be adapted to real-life conditions. Moreover, we think it is wrong for part-time jobs to be overloaded with teaching and administrative duties – which means in the end that the actual research work is poorly remunerated and takes place in the student’s “free time”. We call for such duties to be limited to 25 percent of the working time.
Regardless of whether these demands can be met or not, the setting-up of the Association represents an important step for our views to be heard. We can help to create opportunities for doctoral students in specific programmes, in faculties, at the University as a whole – and beyond. For this reason, our call goes out to all doctoral students: get actively involved in what we do, because together we can make progress.
David Koke is a member of the Representative Body for Doctoral Students at the University of Münster and is himself a doctoral student at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in the Weinheimer working group.
Transparent, sustainable and reliable
The University of Münster is committed to shaping career paths for researchers in ways that are transparent, sustainable and reliable. Our staff development scheme states that promoting researchers is needs-oriented, targeted and systematic, supporting the initiative which staff themselves show and taking into account both individual and professional phases in people’s lives.
At a time when there are constraints on resources, and against a background of discussions relating to the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz, WissZeitVG, (the law which regulates fixed-term employment contracts and working conditions in the academic sector), universities are more than ever asking the question of how academic career paths can be made attractive nowadays. What are the major components in an academic career? How can we provide support?
Without going into the details of the controversial debate on the WissZeitVG currently being held: on the one hand, the amendment underlines an improvement in working conditions in the qualifying phase as a result of promises of subsequent unlimited work contracts, with this improvement benefiting the academic output. On the other hand, there is a fear that the timeframe of eight plus two years, with subsequent unlimited work contracts, is too short and that, as a result, no additional permanent jobs will be created. But, in any case, the discussion is helpful inasmuch as it means that more wide-ranging debates are being initiated on various topics: career paths; making independent research possible alongside a professorship; the innovative capabilities of young researchers; the wide-ranging spectrum of duties involved in “permanent jobs”; and, last but not least, structures at the University. We will therefore be engaging in joint discussions relating to the publicly discussed career paths towards lecturer, manager or researcher at the level below a professorship.
A series of measures and steering instruments have already been introduced and implemented which are helping to advance the structures-related process. These include, for example, our staff development scheme – which describes the perspectives of various paths – as well as professional advice and offers of support for all aspects of further training, networking, mentoring and coaching.
A key role is played by our managers, the deans and professors, who promote young researchers at early stages of their career. For them, too, we have offers. With our relaunched Münster Centre for Emerging Researchers, we have fundamentally revised and expanded our offers of support for doctoral students and postdocs. Young researchers are being networked with other central institutions and given needs-oriented support – with a view to their professional profiling, the acquisition of external funding, career planning, management skills, as well as in relation to challenges specific to lives and careers such as balancing family and work, and gender equality. Finally, with our tenure-track programme we are providing structural and monetary support in promoting the transparency, sustainability and reliability mentioned above for a career path towards a professorship.
Prof. Maike Tietjens is Vice-Rector for Academic Career Development and Diversity
This article appeared in the University newspaper wissen|leben No. 4, 12 June 2024.
Translated by: Ken Ashton