This interview was conducted in German. An English transcript is available at the bottom of this page.

In this episode, Prof. Dr. Felix Hartmann, professor of civil and labour law at Freie Universität Berlin and winner of the DRS Supervision Award, shares his perspective on what characterises good doctoral supervision. He talks about the importance of choosing the right topic at the beginning of a doctorate and why a certain sense of commitment to the project is essential.

The conversation also explores how supervision changes over the course of a doctorate, what role expectations and continuous exchange play, and why doctoral researchers need to take ownership of their work. In addition, Prof. Hartmann reflects on common challenges, such as losing sight of the bigger picture or getting stuck in details, and explains how different funding situations can influence both the pace of the doctorate and the supervision process.

Audio

This interview was conducted in February 2026.

Highlights

„I always tell people that if, right from the start, you don’t even have that feeling—that “yes, this is my thing, I really want to do this”—then it’s not going to work out. Because it’s like a marriage. If you’re not even in love at the beginning, it probably won’t last. And that feeling—a certain infatuation with the subject, so to speak—should ideally develop.“

“I actually want the people I mentor to make it clear in their books that they stand for something, that they’re genuinely trying to put forward a very specific point of view. And as I said, that doesn’t have to be the view I would take myself, but it does have to be an opinion, a stance, that comes through—one that’s at least worth engaging with.”

-from our interview with Prof. Hartmann

Links

Find useful links on the topic of good supervision as well as information on past DRS supervisor award winners here.

Trasnscript

Intro

Welcome to the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. My name is Dr. Marlies Klamt, and in today’s episode I’m speaking with law professor, Professor Felix Hartmann. He has held the Chair of Civil Law and Labor Law at Freie Universität Berlin for ten years and has won the DRS Supervision Award, a prize given for outstanding supervision of doctoral students. Our conversation focuses on what constitutes good doctoral supervision, what matters most at the very beginning of a doctoral program, and how different institutional frameworks and funding models can influence the day-to-day reality of doctoral studies as well as the supervision process.

Among other things, we discuss what personalized supervision of doctoral candidates means to Professor Hartmann and why he considers the choice of topic at the start of the doctoral program to be so crucial; we also explore the role that the research proposal, ongoing communication, and clear expectations play in his approach to supervision. And last but not least, we discuss how the type of funding and the doctoral candidate’s status can affect the pace of the doctoral studies and the nature of the supervision.

Interview

Professor Hartmann, please introduce yourself briefly to our listeners. Who are you, what field do you work in, and what is your current research focus?

Yes, I’d be happy to. My name is Felix Hartmann. I have been a professor of civil and labor law at the Free University of Berlin (FU Berlin) for nearly ten years and serve as director of the Institute for Labor Law there. My research focuses on civil law and, above all, labor law. In labor law, I primarily deal with issues of collective labor law, such as collective bargaining agreements and strikes, for example. And one of my main areas of focus lately has been work constitution.

Thank you very much. We’re meeting today to talk because you won the DRS Supervision Award. How did you find out that you’d won the award? And do you remember what your first thought was when you heard the news?

Yes, funnily enough, I found out about it on LinkedIn, through a post by the Dahlem Research School. And at first I couldn’t take it seriously at all, because I was completely surprised by this award—one whose existence, to be honest, I didn’t even know about. And I have to say that my first thought was, “Actually, you don’t deserve this.” Maybe many others do, but not you.” But then I was actually very happy about this truly great honor.

That’s very interesting. So you obviously didn’t know about the nomination either. What makes this special is that the nomination comes from the doctoral students themselves. Why do you think they nominated you?

I’ve actually thought about this for a long time, because it’s also tied to the question of whether I actually deserve this award at all. Apparently, I have managed to develop a very, very good working relationship with at least a few doctoral students, one that also includes a nice personal connection. And a few really good projects have come out of that in the past. So apparently, from the doctoral students’ perspective as well, it is, in part, a fruitful working relationship that we have established.

At the same time, however, I must admit that for me, supervising doctoral students is actually one of the most demanding and challenging aspects of my work, and perhaps also the area where I very often feel that I’m not really living up to the standards that should be expected. And that’s precisely why I was particularly surprised by the award, but ultimately very pleased as well.

Yes, that’s very interesting. We’ll be discussing that in detail shortly—what makes for good doctoral supervision and what experience you bring to the table. But I have one last question about the award, since it comes with a prize of 2,000 euros to support doctoral students. Do you already have an idea of how you’ll use that money?

I don’t have a concrete idea yet, but the general direction was clear to me right away. One area where I’ve done far too little so far is fostering better networking among the doctoral students. I have these truly wonderful working relationships with each of my doctoral students individually, but I’ve neglected to facilitate interaction among them, unless it happens naturally, for example, at the institute. So I’m going to come up with some kind of format where we might go away for a retreat and tackle a few fundamental questions about academic work, perhaps with external speakers as well.

That sounds like a very nice idea. What does good doctoral supervision constitute of?

I believe that effective doctoral supervision must, above all, be tailored individually and personally to each doctoral student. In my experience, everyone faces their own unique challenges. Some struggle with research. Others may lack inspiring ideas on how to approach their topic.

And still others may struggle with academic writing. And then there’s the fact that every topic presents its own unique and individual challenges. Tailoring doctoral supervision to address these very specific, individual issues seems to me to be the most essential point. And I believe that doctoral supervision is incredibly important, especially at the beginning of a doctoral project.

The biggest challenge is finding a good topic, because good topics don’t exactly grow on trees. And my impression is that the high dropout rate we sometimes see in doctoral programs is often linked to the choice of topic. Often, the topics seem too broad or too narrow to me. A professor I once worked for said that a dissertation is a journeyman’s piece. And that’s a phrase that keeps coming back to me, even when I’m supervising doctoral students.

You also shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew by choosing a topic that’s far too difficult—one that might be suitable for a postdoctoral thesis but certainly isn’t appropriate for a doctoral dissertation. Conversely, of course, one shouldn’t choose a topic that might be better suited for an essay rather than an entire book. And this search for a topic—this is the first important point—is where the doctoral advisor plays a truly decisive role, because only he or she can really assess the suitability of a topic, at least at the beginning of the doctoral phase. And for me, the research proposal—which I have all my doctoral students write at the beginning of this phase—plays a very important role in doctoral supervision.

This serves a variety of purposes, and I did this myself back when I was a doctoral student—it helped me a great deal, and I get the impression that it’s also very helpful for the students I advise. The purposes are as follows: First, you can ask yourself whether the topic offers enough substance, or conversely, whether it might be far too broad for a dissertation.

So when you write an exposé like this, you’re forced to really dig deep into the topic and think: What exactly am I going to cover? What are the key questions? What hypotheses might I have? And how do I want to approach this topic methodologically? That’s really important. And when you’re writing this proposal, you usually realize right away whether your heart is in it—whether the doctoral candidate is, so to speak, really into it. That’s something you can really tell during this process.

Because I always tell people that if, right from the start, you don’t even have that feeling—yes, this is my topic, I absolutely want to do this—then it won’t work out. Because it’s like a marriage. If you’re not even in love at the beginning, then it probably won’t last. And that feeling of, so to speak, being in love with the topic—that should develop as much as possible.

And then there’s a third aspect for which I believe the exposé is very important, and that is that these 10 to 15 pages—which is usually the length of the exposé—allow you to determine quite clearly whether there are any fundamental issues with the research or with the academic writing. And it’s just much, much easier to identify and discuss these issues based on 10 or 15 pages than it is to go back and address such problems in a much longer text after hundreds of pages have already been written.

So, from what I’ve gathered, you definitely make sure to lay a solid foundation right from the start. I also really liked the comparison between being in love and marriage—it made me smile. Would you bring that up directly? I mean, if you were to say that you sense the spark or the infatuation is missing a bit. Or perhaps there are still some fundamental issues with academic writing, such that the person isn’t yet able to express themselves the way you expect. Is that something you actually address very directly right from the start?

Yes, the foundation of this process is that both parties understand that just because I ask someone to write a research proposal, that doesn’t mean they’ve been accepted as a doctoral candidate, but rather that we’re simply setting out on this path together to see if it’s a good fit—if the topic is a good fit, if we’re a good fit personally, and if the doctoral candidate also gets the impression that they can meet the requirements I set and, in my view, those set by the process itself. And in that sense, it’s really just a certain formalization of a process that I consider very important. I haven’t actually had it happen very often that things end at the proposal stage.

But there have also been two or three cases where either I or the other person said, “No, I don’t think this is going to work out between us. It was an interesting exchange, thank you very much. But I don’t think we’ll be working together.” And that’s perfectly fine.

So it has to work for both of us. And a doctoral student once told me something that made me very happy: during our first conversation, he had the impression that I had applied to him in exactly the same way that he had applied to me. And that made me happy because I actually believe that this mutuality of the whole process, as well as the nature of a shared journey, is reflected quite well. And if I can convey that impression, then I’m actually quite happy with that.

When I asked about good doctoral supervision, the first thing you said was that you prefer to provide individualized, personalized guidance. That’s only possible if you don’t supervise too many students at once. How many doctoral students are you currently supervising, and what would you say is the ideal number for you personally—and why?

Right now, I’m supervising seven doctoral students—one of whom is a member of our department, and the rest are external. That’s a number I can easily manage. There have been times when there were significantly more. That’s because, by chance, a relatively large number of them have all finished at the same time.

I’ve also had well over ten people to supervise at the same time. But I think that if the number were to increase further, you’d eventually reach the limits of what you can handle, especially if you want to have regular, in-depth conversations with them. And I know colleagues who supervise 40 or 50 people at the same time. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone could do that properly.

In any case, I wouldn’t see myself as capable of doing that. And with the seven to ten people I have, I’m already fully occupied, and I can’t really imagine taking on any more.

What experiences from your own time as a doctoral student have had a particularly strong influence on how you supervise students today? I’m thinking both of positive experiences that you’d like your doctoral students to have as well, but also of less pleasant ones where you might say, “I want to consciously distance myself from that and act differently.”

During my own doctoral studies, I had very little contact with my advisor after the first third of the project, even though I know him very well. And that was mainly my fault, because at some point I felt that I had already made so many decisions in this project, and I was worried that he might talk me out of one or two of them. So at some point, I decided to just hand him the finished book at the very end, hoping that he would then approve of it as a complete work. And that actually worked out in my case, because he actually liked the book quite a bit.

But I took an incredibly high risk by doing that. And in hindsight, I wouldn’t do it that way again. And I wouldn’t recommend that to the doctoral students I supervise either. Instead, it’s important to really maintain contact throughout the entire duration of the project.

As I just mentioned, I believe that the advisor plays a more important role at the beginning of the project than later on. Because setting up the project—so to speak, driving in the rough stakes to determine where the journey should go, defining the topic a bit, and all those things—embedding it, too, in a broader research discourse that the doctoral student may not yet fully grasp. These are all things that are important at the beginning.

The deeper the doctoral student gets into the research themselves, the more they naturally outpace you in terms of detailed knowledge at some point, and you may then no longer be as important as you were at the beginning. Nevertheless, it is of course important to maintain contact and to continue supervising the project, especially since course corrections may be necessary later on, or completely unexpected obstacles may arise, or new developments that suddenly cast doubt on the project or at least need to be incorporated—all those kinds of things.

And so I do try to maintain a constant and ongoing dialogue with all the doctoral students. It’s that “just grit your teeth and get through it” mentality, so to speak, that I had back then—at least during the final phase of my own doctoral studies—that doesn’t really happen anymore. But this is explicitly not a criticism of my doctoral advisor, whom I hold in very high regard and whom I also greatly appreciated as a supervisor; rather, it’s a criticism I would level at myself as a doctoral student in hindsight.

I definitely agree with you that it’s important to maintain constant communication throughout the course of the dissertation and right up until submission. You mentioned earlier that most of your doctoral candidates are external students. Have you established formal structures to discuss their progress on a regular basis? Or do you feel that this is more the responsibility of the doctoral candidates themselves?

In fact, I tell my doctoral students that it’s primarily their responsibility to reach out to me if any problems arise or if they need to talk. But if I don’t hear from someone for an unusually long time—say, several months—then of course I’ll check in to see how things are going and if any problems have come up. And, of course, I’ve seen time and again that doctoral students face difficulties in their personal lives—personal tragedies, illnesses, family circumstances. Unfortunately, that has led to the end of one or two projects.

And you have to accept that life sometimes doesn’t take such projects into account. But if I get the impression that someone is drifting away a bit, I do try to actively maintain contact. But I tell people quite explicitly that a professor naturally has many balls in the air at the same time, so the initiative should really come from the doctoral candidates. And I emphasize this very strongly, especially in light of my own experiences, that doctoral candidates should also be aware of this.

And I really do try to make it possible whenever I can for us to get together—even if it’s just via video call—at short notice, because often a 20- or 30-minute conversation, which I can easily fit into my schedule almost every day, can already help the doctoral student navigate a difficult situation or make an important decision that’s coming up.

Has your approach to mentoring changed over the course of your career? Do you mentor differently today than you did at the beginning, when you were supervising your very first doctoral students?

Not fundamentally, I’d say. But I’ve noticed that I have my own unique approach with each individual doctoral candidate. There are people I talk to more often. There are people who want to discuss even minor changes to their structure or outline with me.

And then there are those who confidently say, “No, I’ll decide on the bigger questions myself.” And that’s when I realize that their needs are actually quite different, and I try to respond to that and take it into account. I also think it’s legitimate to work more closely with the advisor in some cases and less closely in others. I also tell all the doctoral students I supervise time and time again that, ultimately, it’s their project.

It’s not, so to speak, a commissioned piece of work that I’m just having someone else do because I don’t have the time, but rather a genuine academic achievement of their own that they are expected to produce. And there are different styles for that as well, which I try to adapt to in each case.

For doctoral supervision to work well—and this is something you yourself have emphasized before—it is very important that the expectations of both sides are met, that is, on the part of the doctoral candidates, but also on the part of the supervisors. What do you expect from doctoral candidates, both academically and personally?

So, from a professional standpoint, the crucial point for me is that a dissertation should produce something new. Just as Richard Wagner once wrote to his fellow composer List: “Children create new things, new things, and yet more new things.” I quote this quite often because I truly believe that is the decisive point. There are far too many dissertations on the market that essentially just compile existing material. And that’s just a spanner in the works. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and doesn’t really move the world forward. And this whole plagiarism situation we’re dealing with has, in my view, created the false impression that all that matters is adding the right footnotes to compiled texts. That’s not science; science is innovation. Science is new ideas.

This basic requirement—which, by the way, is usually included in doctoral regulations as well—this basic requirement is what I’m trying to make clear. And this seems particularly important to me for law graduates, because our program is one that, not least, trains people in certain practical skills, so to speak, but perhaps does not make it clear enough how to work scientifically and what, so to speak, the actual goal of scientific work is.

And some doctoral candidates already have a pretty good idea of this right from the start, so to speak, while with others I get the impression that I first have to raise their awareness of it. And I always try to make that very, very clear at the beginning. And from a purely academic standpoint, that’s actually perhaps the only requirement I have: that it has to be interesting in some way and that it has to be something new. That doesn’t mean at all that I’ll ultimately agree with the theses presented in the dissertation.

It might even be the case that I reject all of it, but it has to be such that it challenges me and other readers at least enough that something emerges from engaging with these new theses. On a personal level, I don’t even know if I should expect too much there. I think this is something that’s perhaps hard to put into words. I consider it absolutely essential that there’s harmony between the advisor and the doctoral candidate on a human level as well. At least as far as I’ve been able to tell, I’ve never had a major problem with that.

But if you were to realize that you just don’t really like each other, then I don’t think that’s a good foundation for a working relationship. But I would guess that in such a case, both parties would sense it, and the doctoral candidate might then start looking for another option.

As for what they expect from me in return, I usually don’t even ask. And now that you mention it, I realize that it might actually be a good idea to have them clearly articulate their expectations as well. I think I’ll make a point of doing that in future conversations—if I ever find myself at the start of a project like this again—to ask more specifically about their expectations as well.

I’m glad I was able to inspire you there. I also think it’s very important for doctoral students to have a clear understanding of their own expectations, because these are often very implicit, and you first have to make them clear to yourself. And a question like that naturally challenges you to think about what you actually expect from yourself, because that’s a question that, I would guess, usually isn’t asked otherwise. In what situations do you notice that doctoral students are getting in their own way?

Well, I’m thinking of things like avoidable mistakes, or not asking questions when they’re unsure, imposter syndrome, and so on—that they might not have enough confidence in themselves or speak up enough. Are there any situations you’ve observed?

So, a recurring problem I’ve really observed in a great many candidates is that they’ve become fixated on individual aspects of their topic and lost sight of the broader context of the subject they’re working on. This is something I warn against time and again, but it keeps happening, and I can certainly relate to it, because even in my own research projects, I sometimes run the risk of getting bogged down on a single point. And what I always advise in such cases is to really take a step back at least every few days and, with whatever you’re grappling with, always ask yourself: what is the significance of this specific sub-question I’m currently working on for my entire project? Why do I even want to know this?

And in my opinion, there are far too many dissertations on the market that clearly show that, so to speak, this central thread is essentially missing—that various topics somehow related to the subject are simply thrown together without the research objective ever becoming clear. And that’s how books end up being produced that are essentially completely unreadable and, apart from the people who have to read them, aren’t actually read by anyone. And we really want to spare the world from such works, and we especially want to spare doctoral students from them, so they don’t end up wasting valuable time by getting unnecessarily bogged down in them. So this is a problem I observe very often.

And then, actually, since you mentioned the courage to take a stand and so on—to hold one’s own opinion—that is perhaps something that needs to be particularly encouraged among lawyers. During their training, lawyers are, after all, taught to solve cases according to specific guidelines. Of course, even there, one often has to take a stand for one view or another. But they are often not very accustomed to really taking a stand as themselves, so to speak, when it comes to academic questions.

And yet that is precisely what is necessary in a dissertation—that it is simply not enough to write, “Some say this, and others say that.” That is something that cannot be emphasized enough. I actually want the people I supervise to commit to a position in their books, to stand for something, to really try to put forward a very specific opinion. And as I said, that doesn’t have to be the view I would take myself, but it must be an opinion, a stance, that is evident there—one that is at least worth engaging with.

Yes, and then perhaps also overcoming that fear of making yourself vulnerable when you take a stand. Looking on the bright side, can you recall a specific situation where a doctoral student really impressed you?

Situations like that have come up often. Doctoral students often impress me with the new ideas they come up with through their in-depth engagement with the literature and case law. This often brings to light aspects of topics that I might not have even considered when I first conceived the topic together with the students. So it happens quite frequently that something is unexpectedly brought to light, and you realize that it’s definitely worth having someone delve deeply into this topic.

And then there are people—I’ve supervised doctoral students who have written books—about whom I have to say quite clearly that I wouldn’t have been able to do that, especially at that stage of my training. So these are books that I can truly only admire.

That’s a very nice compliment. A doctoral program takes many years, so it’s normal for disagreements to arise from time to time. How do you handle conflicts with your doctoral students?

When I think back, I actually haven’t had that many clearly identifiable conflicts over the years. There may have been conflicts, but they were always related to the subject matter—for example, when I suggested certain changes that weren’t well-received, or when we perhaps didn’t quite agree on how to frame the topic. And in those conflicts, which never really escalated, but which nevertheless emerged as recognizable differences of opinion, so to speak—in these conflicts, it was always important to me not to assert myself simply because I’m in a position of power, so to speak, because I’m the one who will ultimately evaluate the work, and because I’m the one on whom the doctoral candidate, of course, is in a certain sense also dependent.

Instead, it was important to me, even in such conflict situations, to always emphasize that it is the doctoral candidate’s research project. And the final decision must then actually be made by the doctoral candidate themselves. And, incidentally, it hasn’t been all that rare for doctoral candidates to ignore my urgent advice to structure the book in a certain way at a particular point and to do it differently instead. And that has sometimes even surprised me in specific cases.

But I have always accepted it, and I have always been able to see it in a positive light, insofar as it is an expression of that academic freedom which we always emphasize so strongly—and which we should, after all, also put into practice.

Since you’re also an expert in labor law, I’d like to briefly discuss with you how the labor law situation can affect doctoral studies and doctoral supervision. The reality is that doctoral candidates work under very different conditions—some with a contract as research assistants, some with a scholarship, and some externally, as is the case with many of your doctoral candidates. What differences do you observe in the supervision, and where do you see particular challenges?

n fact, I’m always deeply moved by this and take a keen interest in how my doctoral students support themselves and what their overall lifestyle is like. And I don’t believe that showing an interest in these matters constitutes any kind of overstepping; rather, I actually see it as part of good doctoral supervision—that as a doctoral advisor, one also addresses these issues. And if I get the impression that someone doesn’t really have a viable plan in place, then I’m not willing to supervise them. So that framework really has to be in place.

You just mentioned that there are, of course, various ways to structure this time. In my view, by far the best way to pursue a doctorate is in a research assistant position—ideally with your advisor. Because that naturally ensures, in a very casual way, that you see each other much more frequently and can clarify questions on the fly or at the coffee machine.

This ensures that you gain a much deeper insight into your advisor’s academic way of thinking. And that is why this is undoubtedly by far the best approach. However, especially in Berlin, we simply don’t have that many positions for research assistants. And some people view even these positions as precarious.

There have been repeated attempts to increase the workload for these positions. But if funding remains the same, the result is, of course, that even fewer people will be able to pursue a doctorate in this way. And that’s why, in my opinion, we need to explore other options. I have colleagues who now flatly refuse to take on external doctoral students and only supervise their own.

I handle it differently, and I do so deliberately. But, as you already hinted at in your question, there are certain risks associated with external doctorates. In the legal field, a very common way to pursue an external doctorate is to work one or two days a week at a law firm as a research assistant, earning just enough to barely make ends meet, so to speak. And while this model is widespread, I’m actually reluctant to recommend it.

This is because those two days often turn into two and a half, and you constantly have to get back into your dissertation project after taking a break of several days. In my experience, this really does end up extending the time it takes to complete the work. And ultimately, even though I can only speak from anecdotal evidence, the failure rate is certainly higher. However, I have also supervised external doctoral candidates who have managed this very well—who were disciplined enough to juggle these different demands and produce truly excellent work within a reasonable timeframe, despite this dual burden.

So it really comes down to the individual. And when I get to know people, I actually always try to figure out whether they’re capable of handling it if they decide to go down this path. It’s also the case that you’ve often known the people doing their doctorates with you for quite some time. You often know them from their time as undergraduates, and that gives you an impression of how they work, what their strengths are, and especially how organized they are.

And if I get the impression that someone has the discipline and is organized enough to handle the demands of a part-time doctoral program, then I’m happy to share the risk. But the risk is there, and you have to be aware of that.

What rights and responsibilities do you think doctoral students should definitely be aware of? And where do you see the most common misunderstandings?

For several years now, our department has been using a supervision agreement that sets out the mutual rights and obligations in considerable detail. It mentions regular meetings. Conversely, the doctoral candidate commits to working continuously on the project. Of course, these are rights and obligations that very rarely become legally enforceable; rather, I believe this serves to simply make everyone aware of this reciprocal relationship.

I believe it is important for doctoral candidates to have places to turn to if conflicts do arise. We handle this by always having a second advisor, who could typically—though not necessarily—later become the second examiner. And if serious conflicts or even rifts do arise, then one should not hesitate to turn to this second advisor, for example, who might be able to mediate. And there are other points of contact as well. There are ombudspersons whom one can turn to. These are all options that doctoral candidates may not be sufficiently aware of.

Fortunately, that has never been necessary in my case or among the people I know. But I don’t want to rule out the possibility that I might face such difficulties someday. And if that happens, it would be important to me that the people I support know there are places they can turn to.

Since, unfortunately, as you just mentioned yourself, not all supervisory relationships are positive—even if you haven’t been affected by this yet—I have another question for you. In your view, what is needed at the institutional level to promote good care on the one hand, but also to prevent problematic situations such as strong dependencies, abuse of power, and perhaps even structural overload on supervisors, resulting in a lack of supervision or no supervision at all?

This is a topic that’s currently the subject of much debate, and there’s also discussion about whether the entire structural framework should perhaps be redesigned—for example, whether supervision and evaluation of the dissertation should be separated to prevent abuse, or whether the whole process should, so to speak, be made more like a school system, transformed into structured doctoral programs, as is more common in the U.S. than here. I have to say that, perhaps based on my very positive experiences so far, I don’t actually think much of these proposals. In my view, separating supervision from evaluation is difficult in practice because, for some topics, you first have to find people who can evaluate them competently.

And the institutionalization of the whole process is, in my view, questionable insofar as the freedom and individuality—both of which I emphasized earlier—could all too easily fall by the wayside in such structured programs. If you want to do something institutionally, then I think it’s simply important to make doctoral students even more aware of the existing support services that are already available—so they know they’re not alone when problems arise. They aren’t alone now, of course. And then, basically, you can only encourage people to actually make use of these services when they encounter problems.

Perhaps I’m viewing it all too positively based on my own experiences, but I also get the impression that certain problems—such as the exploitation of power imbalances and the like—are actually becoming somewhat less prevalent, because the glory days of the past, when senior professors held all the power, are largely over anyway, and in some cases perhaps rightly so. And I actually have the impression that the younger generation of professors—to whom I certainly no longer count myself—that this younger generation is actually much more attentive to such issues, has much greater awareness. And that certainly doesn’t eliminate all problems, but I do believe that overall, things are moving in the right direction.

And that is why I would caution against overly radical reforms of the framework, because science and academic freedom must remain at the center.

Perhaps I should also take this opportunity to remind everyone listening to this interview that there are many episodes in this podcast that deal specifically with the topic of abuse of power and what you can do about it as a victim. There are interviews with ombudspersons and so on. So anyone who might be in a situation where they want to learn more can also use this podcast—and the other episodes available here—as a first point of reference. Professor Hartmann, we’re slowly coming to the end of our conversation.

Is there any other aspect of doctoral supervision that you consider important but that we haven’t addressed yet?

One important point we haven’t touched on yet, but which might be quite significant for a lawyer, is that different disciplines have different doctoral cultures. For example, in law, a great many practitioners actually pursue doctoral degrees, and this leads to a very vibrant exchange between legal practice and legal scholarship—something that simply doesn’t exist in other countries. And of course, this also shapes the way doctoral studies are conducted and how dissertations are supervised.

For example, these external doctoral programs we discussed earlier make sense from this perspective because they keep the dialogue between academia and practice very much alive and can foster it. And that is another reason—to come back to your previous question—why I actually have reservations about forcing doctoral programs in various disciplines into structures that simply cannot do justice to these very subject-specific characteristics. That is an aspect that just occurred to me and that is always important to me when it comes to the topic of doctoral studies, especially in discussions with representatives of other disciplines.

Thank you very much for that addition. I’ve brought a few quick-fire questions to wrap things up, and it’s really simple. I’ll ask you a question, and you’ll answer with just one word or a few words—just go with your gut and say the first thing that comes to mind. Ready?

I will do my best.

When you think back to your own time as a doctoral candidate, which characteristics of your supervisor did you most appreciate?

His incredible intuition, always knowing immediately and instinctively what the right thing to do is.

In your view, who bears primary responsibility for securing funding? Supervisors or doctoral candidates?

The doctoral candidates, but as I said, I believe there is shared responsibility; however, it is their life and they are the ones who must plan for it.

What should you definitely clarify early on in a mentoring relationship?

The overall goals, the objectives and aspirations of the entire project, and perhaps also why you’re actually doing all of this.

In your experience, what is the most common reason why doctoral studies stall and take longer than expected?

Choosing the wrong topic from the start.

What would you have liked to have known sooner when you were a doctoral student?

That I was on the right track.

Which is more important, brilliance or perseverance?

Both are necessary.

The most important quality for successfully completing a doctoral degree?

Probably perseverance, after all.

Dear Professor Hartmann, I would like to thank you very, very much for your time, for your openness, and for sharing your experiences regarding doctoral supervision and beyond. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. That was a pleasure.

Outro

That was Professor Felix Hartmann, winner of the 2025 Supervisor Award, discussing doctoral supervision here on the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. If you’d like to listen to more episodes of the DRS Podcast, you’ll find discussions, for example, on how to build a good relationship with your advisor and how power structures influence the supervisory relationship. You’ll also find other interviews worth listening to with past Supervisor Award winners in the podcast. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt, and I’d like to thank you very much for listening. Until next time here on the DRS Podcast.

This interview was conducted by our trainer and co-host of our podcast Dr. Marlies Klamt.