The Doctoral Council acts as the representative body for all doctoral researchers at the university. It was established in the State of Berlin following the implementation of the new Berlin Higher Education Act (Hochschulgesetz). At Freie Universität Berlin, the council comprises two elected members from each department, totaling 22 members. We interviewed Maren Vogel ….

Highlights

“I think personally the most rewarding was the amount of people that have approached me from my department but also beyond with their different personal stories, however big or small. Not all of them lead to kind of political decisions or political issues, but it’s just very rewarding to hear how much trust people put in the work that we do as a Doctoral Council.”

Maren Vogel, representative of the doctoral council at FUB

Welcome to the Dahlem Research School Podcast, the DRS for Docs at Berlin podcast from Freie Universität Berlin. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and I’m excited to host today’s episode. In this episode, we’re introducing the speaker of the newly elected Doctoral Council from May 2024, the very first Doctoral Council at FU. It’s the perfect opportunity to explore what the council is, what they do and their rights and responsibilities. We’ll also discuss how you can get involved if you’re interested. Our guest, Maren Vogel, will give us a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like to be part of the council.

Let’s dive in. Maren, we are thrilled to have you here with us today. Could you start by briefly introducing yourself and let our listeners know a bit about who you are, what you do and for the moment leaving your work with the Doctorial Council aside as we’ll dive into that later.

Thank you, Marlies, for having me here. My name is Maren Vogel. I am a research assistant and PhD student at the Department of Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. I’m working on the interplay between the law of the European Union and international commercial law and specifically dispute resolution. I have been a member of the Freie Universität since April 2022 when I joined as a research assistant and PhD student. Before that, I pursued my undergraduate degree at Heidelberg University where I finished with my first state examination in law. And yeah, so I’ve been here for two and a half years and I’m very happy to now be the first speaker of the Doctoral Council of the Freie Universität Berlin.

Congratulations on that. For those who might not be familiar with the concept of a Doctoral Council, let’s start with the basics. Can you explain a bit about what it is and what its main responsibilities are?

Of course. I think the concept of the Doctoral Council is quite well illustrated by the work of the legislator that made it mandatory for Berlin universities to have a Doctoral Council. The idea that the legislator had in 2021 was to strengthen the involvement and representation of PhD students in the questions that relate to them and their rights at the university. But they also wanted to strengthen the PhD students‘ network to communicate across the borders of their respective departments and fields of study and work that they do. So for us, this means that we have quite a broad kind of idea of what we can do and what we want to do. We are still in the phase of defining for ourselves and developing an idea of our aims and goals. What we have now reached is kind of a threefold idea of what we see ourselves as, which is firstly representation, secondly, a network, and thirdly, a point of contact. Representation for us means firstly to get in contact and to find out what PhD students want a Doctoral Council to do for them, to let us know what we can do and what issues we can and should address, especially those that are not limited to a specific department or a specific work structure within a department, but more globally within the universities, because a lot of these issues don’t only come up in one field or the other. That is the first pillar of representation.

Secondly, we are trying to foster and build connection within the university beyond the subject borders because I feel like PhD students tend to stay within their fields like a lot of undergrads also do, but this is very firmly instilled in kind of the environment that we study and work in and we try to build an opportunity to get to know people from other fields and maybe even foster some academic exchange between these different fields.

And then thirdly, we want to be a point of contact for PhD students that have any issues relating to their PhD projects, whatever that looks like for them. Because we found that there’s quite a lot of different structures of counseling and of different supervision and support systems within the university, which we would not be able to kind of do for ourselves for PhD students. So we try to be a point of contact to point people with any sort of issue in the right direction where they are able to find help and also take them along the way of getting what they need from these different structures that we have within the Freie Universität Berlin.

That sounds very interesting. Thanks for explaining that in detail. You already mentioned that the Doctorial Council has quite a bit of influence and rights, but I think a lot of doctoral candidates aren’t fully aware of that. Could you talk a bit more about the kind of say you have in decisions and why having a Doctoral Council is so important?

Yes, of course. I think there’s twofold to keep in mind. There’s different institutional levels at the Freie Universität that you kind of have to think about separately and also a different degree of involvement. One is more informal, where we try, as I said, to build a network and be a point of contact. And the other is more formal, where we are kind of an actual body that is installed within the university. So we have “Rede- und Antragsrecht”, which means that we have the right to speak and to make demands at the Academic Senate of the Freie Universität Berlin, for example, on this highest institutional level, where we are not allowed to vote because we are … The PhD students are technically also part of the student bodies. They didn’t want to give us kind of a double vote, if you will. So we have this opportunity to speak at the Academic Senate with any issues that we find relevant for them. We have also a more informal but very good relationship to the executive board, which has been very welcoming and very forward with their support for our work. And we are also members of the governing body of the Dahlem Research School, where we are allowed to speak and vote on issues because all these issues are directly related to PhD students.

And then we also, next to this institutional, more like centralized bodies, we have the department level. We always have the right to vote two electoral council members from each department. And within these departments, we are members of the department council. There again, we’re not allowed to vote, but we are allowed to speak and make any demands on the “Tagesordnung”, on the agenda of the day. And we have to be consulted if there are any changes to the PhD regulations specifically. If the department wants to change the rules that pursuing and doing a PhD at their specific department then we have to be consulted within this process.

Thanks a lot. You already gave quite a few examples on what your actual work consists of. I would like to go even a bit more into detail. Maybe you could share an example of a time when you were able to actually influence something or make a decision that helped doctoral candidates just to make it a bit more vivid and explain more to our audience what work you’re actually doing.

Of course. I think the most vivid example is a change to the PhD regulations within the Department of Education and Psychology. We have three colleagues from this department that are members of the Electoral Council, which were approached earlier this year in the summer because they wanted to introduce a new structured PhD program within the department with a kind of more specific academic outline. And they had different questions and they wanted to involve our PhD Electoral Council, the people from the Department of Psychology and Education within this change. So there were some questions that we discussed within the Electoral Council as a whole, because we were a bit concerned. There were a couple of rules within the structured PhD regulation that concern meeting certain milestones and that PhD students that could be excluded from the structured program in the case that they do not meet certain milestones. And we were a bit concerned on the amount of pressure that this would put on PhD students who for whatever reason would maybe not be able to meet certain milestones that they had set at the very start of their projects. So we were concerned that this would add to the already existing psychological pressure that a lot of us as PhD students feel.

So our colleagues advocated to change these rules and to state more clearly that this does not mean that you cannot pursue your PhD at the department any longer, but this might mean that you could be excluded from the structured program only. We’re thus able to make it more clear how this would pan out for each individual PhD student, also not mean an end of your PhD as a whole. And now a couple of weeks later, this change to the rules and this clarification was also introduced to the draft regulation that is handed out by the Dahlem research school in case any other departments would want to set up similar structures. So we were able to make a difference within the Department of Psychology and Education, but also moving forward, we have this new draft regulation on a more central institutional level.

That sounds like a great success. Congratulations. And also like something that will make the lives of many PhD candidates a lot easier, a lot less stressful, and maybe even lead to more people actually finishing it because they won’t be excluded. As a doctoral candidate and also a “Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin”, a research assistant, you’re already in a phase of your academic life that is filled with a lot of responsibilities regarding your job, regarding your PhD. What motivated you personally to take on the additional role being the speaker of the Doctoral Council?

I think this is quite well illustrated in my case. It’s a bit of a coincidence to get involved in these situations, in these institutions. I got an email through the department mailing list that the governing body of the DRS, the Dahlem Research School, was looking for representatives of the PhD body for the law faculty. And I got involved because I was curious what the Dahlhem Research School and its governing body do and what kind of work they discuss there. So at the time, the representatives were trying to fill the gap that they had because we didn’t have the Electoral Council yet. So by the time the first election rolled around, it was kind of quite intuitive for me to continue this work and to foster the insights that I had from the governing body of the Dahlem Research School by becoming an elected member of the Doctoral Council. It was mainly this curiosity not only about the institutional level, but also to get in contact with and foster connections with people from other departments and to discuss with them how different maybe, but also similar these issues that we face as PhD students look within different department structures.

It’s obviously quite different depending on what working group, for example, you’re part of, how big these groups are, how the supervision is structured. Everything is quite different from department to department. So that is kind of what sparked my curiosity to find out how we can reach kind of more global solutions to similar problems that we have, but also to address these issues within my department that hadn’t really been addressed or not all of them had been addressed by the research assistant’s “Mittelbauvertretung”, if you will, the part that has already been established for quite a while. Because there’s some specifics to representation of PhD students, obviously that does not concern those that are working here. For example, people who are on scholarships or other kinds of financial situations. A lot of the PhD students within the law faculty, for example, work completely outside of the university. So all these different situations that PhD students find themselves in are not necessarily represented by the “Mittelbauvertretung” that we already have. So with this idea in mind, I thought it would be a good time to get involved and to address these problems with colleagues from my department, but also from other departments.

Let’s talk a little bit about the workload and the specific tasks connected with being the speaker of the Doctoral Council. How much time would you say you spend on tasks for the Doctoral Council? I don’t know, maybe on a weekly or monthly basis or whichever makes more sense. I have no idea how often you meet, how often you get together for meetings. I don’t know how much time you have to spend preparing, attending the meetings and all the other responsibilities that come with the role. And I would also like to know if you feel like being so involved in other parts of academic life has an impact on your own research as a doctoral candidate, be it positively or negatively?

So to address the second question first, maybe, I find that it’s on a personal level, it’s quite enriching to have these different insights and how other people conduct their PhD, also to hear of completely different fields of interest and what they study. I don’t find that it has negatively impacted my work. I’d rather say that it’s been very rewarding and also helps kind of focus on why I had the idea to start a PhD myself. If I am asking the same question, like what issues do I face, I always ask myself, is this something more global that we could address? So I find that it has been rewarding more than anything and also given me some new kind of push to work through my own project. That being said, how often do we meet? I think during the “Semesterferien”, during the time off in the spring and summer break, we always tend to have a bit of a break for the meetings as well. But other than that, I think roughly every 6 weeks is probably realistic. These meetings normally last 2 to 3 hours, depending on how much we have on the agenda to discuss. Preparation time for most of us doesn’t really take longer than half an hour, which is mostly reading through the agenda, looking at what other people had put in, as like these ideas that they had added to the agenda throughout the last week since we last met.

But then also of course, the time that you invest really depends on the level of commitment and amount of time that you are able and willing to bring to the table. We try and are able to accommodate any personal needs, be that care work or paid work, academic commitments and other time constraints. We are very well aware that the electoral council is just one very tiny part of everyone’s lives and they have all kinds of different things that they have to do, which are of course always different priorities. So it really depends on what you are currently involved in. We have a couple of different projects. We are currently working at the setting up of our website, which hopefully is online by the time this interview is online as well. That is something that is of course a bit more time consuming than other projects. We also have a couple of different long-term projects. We are exchanging ideas and communicating with different Berlin universities on raising the scholarship, the Elsa-Neumann-Stipendium, which is focused on the Berlin area. So that’s kind of a more long-term project, which doesn’t take away as much time on a weekly basis, but it’s still a very important and time-consuming thing as a whole. So there’s all kind of different fields that we are involved in. We have a colleague who is going to be part of a working group on diversity and anti-discrimination within the Freie Universität. That is a project, for example, that is going to take probably like six to nine months where she is going to be in a couple of meetings, which take two hours. So you can kind of feel out what you’re self-interested in and how you can get involved and what kind of time you’re able to bring to the table. So there’s all kinds of different levels if you want that should be able to fit anyone who is interested in getting involved within our Doctoral Council. So we’re trying to give everyone something that they’re interested in and able to accommodate time-wise.

Let’s imagine that one of our listeners is doing their doctorate as well. And after listening to our interview, they say, well, that sounds great. I want to form part of that. How could I get involved? How could I reach out to you? And are there also opportunities for someone to contribute or start working with you even if they’re not formally elected?

Of course, we’re very, very interested to hear from all kinds of different PhD students. If they have any ideas, any projects, any suggestions that we could address, just reach out to us via email or via our hopefully online website. You can find our email address on the website. Our email address is promovierendenvertretung@fu-berlin.de. You can just reach out via email. We can arrange meetings one-on-one. We can also arrange for you to come into one of our meetings within the whole Doctoral Council. We also strongly encourage anyone who is interested to consider becoming an elected member. Next election cycle is coming up in June, July 2025, next year. The term is going to be for two years. If you were finishing your PhD before, that would be no problem. You could leave the official function as well. But also we would just strongly consider anyone to reach out beforehand. If you want to consider becoming a candidate, you’re not sure yet, just reach out to us via our email. We would be very happy to talk to you. We’re currently quite a small group. We represent only three of the departments and we strongly invite anyone from the different departments which are underrepresented, if I may just mention those by name: the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, the Department of Earth Sciences, Department of History and Cultural Studies, Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, Philosophy and Humanities, Political and Social Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, School of Business and Economics, but also Charité. If you are part of the PhD body of any of those departments, but also any of the others, please do consider becoming a member so we can actually represent the whole PhD body of the FUB going forward from June and July next year.

Thank you for mentioning all the different departments. I also think it’s very important that all the different realities are reflected and represented in a sense. Let’s imagine I want to run in the election. How would that work? Do I need to be nominated by others in the faculty or can I just announce my candidacy and fill out some forms? How does it work?

So there’s no need to be suggested or nominated by anyone. If you want, you can always ask someone else to run with you for your department. There’s two elected Doctoral Council representatives for each department. And there’s also two substitutes. So if there’s anyone you would like to run with, you can always talk to them first, but there’s no need to be suggested or nominated by anyone. Then if I remember correctly, you have to go through the decentralized electoral council, which sounds very technical, that is the body within your department that is organizing all these different elections that are going to happen next summer. They will circulate the necessary forms and they will also know much better than I do what exactly you need to fill out to become a candidate. But it’s quite straightforward. There’s like two forms you need to fill out, you put your name down and then there’s the election a couple of weeks later. So these forms do have to be filled out, I think, six weeks in advance. So that would be around April, I guess, that would all these different deadlines will be announced by the official electoral council. You can just fill it out, become a candidate and then your peers, the other PhD students, can have their votes in the official election in the summer.

That sounds pretty easy and straightforward, the whole process. So I guess you’re encouraging everybody who’s interested in just getting more information and actually consider participating. You also already mentioned how rewarding it has been for you personally. After we’ve been talking about this rather detailed process of how to participate in the Doctoral Council and how to get elected, if that’s something someone is interested in, I have another more general question for you. Looking ahead, what changes or improvements would you like to see for doctoral candidates either at your university or more broadly?

That is a very tough question. I think that is also very dependent on the realities that PhD students face, which are quite different in each department, as I mentioned. I think one very important factor for most PhD candidates and students is the question of their financial situation, how they are able to pursue and also plan their financial situation for the time, however long that, is that their PhD is going to take. I know from personal experience that of course, scholarships can be a very great way to finance your PhD, but there’s a problem of bridging the gap until you have, for example, that scholarship, until you’re able to be supported in that way.

And also it’s just not something that is realistic for all different departments. So I think the financial situation and securing financial stability on a long-term basis is very, very much important, which needs to be addressed for those that are research assistants at universities in Berlin, but also beyond. But that also comes back to the question that I mentioned earlier, that we are trying to improve the financial situations of those, for example, on the Elsa-Neumann-Stipendium, which is just not competitive compared to other scholarships within Germany. That is, I think, financial situation is one of the most important.

And also I find that, at least in my department, we run into sometimes conflict of interest concerning people that also work as research assistants for their supervisors. I think that’s something that is generally a problem within academia, that you have these conflicts of interest within someone that you kind of need to pursue your project, the kind of advice that you need from a supervisor, but also being reliant on them on a kind of different level, which is more like normal work, if you will, than a PhD. Because we have these conflicts of interest between working for someone as a research assistant, but also pursuing your own project as a PhD student. I think it is very much dependent on the willingness and ability of these supervisors, but also the leaders of working groups or whatever this exact structure is, to have qualities of leadership.

And I think that’s something that should be addressed on a more institutional and more global level. I know that for younger professors, a leadership program has become mandatory, but I think there is still a lot of improvement to be made in this regard to make everyone aware of these issues that we’ve run into as PhD students and how we can accommodate them from both sides, if you will, of this equation. To be able to have clear communication, to have the ability to talk about issues and resolve those issues without feeling like someone is going to look down on the academic work that you have been pursuing and also have this culture of being able to talk about whatever it is that you’re struggling with while you are doing your projects for your PhD. So I think the financial situation and this leadership problem within supervision structures is something that we should address more globally.

I totally agree. Out of my experience, those are two of the most important aspects that can turn into challenges.

If I also just may add, that is just kind of my perspective. But as I mentioned earlier, we are very much interested to hear from other departments, from other PhD students within the university, what they think are the global problems that we can address. It’s kind of this is my perspective on the most pressing issues for PhD students. So if you have anything else to add, reach out please.

That would have been my follow up question as well, because you mentioned that those are like issues that affect pretty much every person doing a doctorate. But if you can also say something more, I don’t know if you can, but if you can, can you say something more about how the realities are different for … Or the situations of doing a doctorate can be different for people coming from different departments?

Yes, I think talking from the point of view of the Department of Law, it’s quite normal that you have PhD students who work within the university as research assistants on different kind of exact job descriptions, but most of us are research assistants here. But then we also have a lot of people that work outside within, for example, law firms. And I think, I heard that that is quite a different reality if you go into the natural sciences where access to labs, for example, is kind of more dependent on your exact involvement in a working group. And also the size of the groups that you were a part of are also very differently. For example, I am working at a chair of an assistant professor, so I’m at least until a couple of weeks ago, I was the only research assistant. I have colleagues who work with four or five other different research assistants and I know that working groups within other departments can be much, much bigger and also involve, for example, postdocs who are kind of supervising PhD students. So all these different sizes and factors make a huge difference.

41% of PhD students at the Freie Universität are international. I think the number is not as high, but still higher than most people would think within our department, for example. I think that the natural sciences as well are kind of leading with the amount of international students. So those are all kind of factors that make the reality of your PhD very, very different. Also, I mentioned having a scholarship, for example, working within a business is of course a very different reality.

Whether you had also done your undergraduate study at the Freie Universität and know the university, know people, have a more established social life, whether you’ve just joined to do your PhD, that is very different for a lot of different people. So I think it’s just like people from all over the world, from every walk of life, whether you’re the first in your family to do a PhD. All these things make a huge difference on how you experience doing a PhD at the Freie Universität.

Thank you for this very insightful overview of the different realities that there are. And I can already tell you that next year in 2025, we’re going to do an interview about the first generation PhD. So it’s great that you mentioned that as well. Is there anything that we haven’t covered yet that you’d really like to share?

Well, it’s just … The most important part for me is to again state wherever you’re from, whatever you’re doing, whatever your PhD looks like, just mention a couple of different realities that you may find yourself in. We would very much like to hear from you and hear from your perspective on doing a PhD at the Freie Universität. If you feel like you would want to become an elected member of the Doctoral Council, we would very much like to meet you, to talk to you, if that’s something that you would want to do before putting your name on the ballot. Everyone is welcome. We are very happy to have as many people from as many different walks of life join us in the next summer and to continue our work and building our profile and our idea. So yeah, just hit us up. Let us know what you want that we could address, but also put your name on the ballot and get involved.

Do I need to speak German in order to be an elected member?

No, you don’t. We have some formalities so we have to have a protocol that is in German which is binding but we are all able to speak English perfectly so it would not be a problem at all. If you are not a native German speaker or not comfortable with speaking German, we are very, very open to conducting our meetings and everything else in English.

Maren, let’s wrap up with one last question. What’s been the most rewarding moment for you so far in your role as the speaker of the Doctoral Council?

I think personally the most rewarding was the amount of people that have approached me from my department but also beyond with their different personal stories, however big or small. Not all of them lead to kind of political decisions or political issues, but it’s just very rewarding to hear how much trust people put in the work that we do as a Doctoral Council. And I hope to be able to match these expectations in the future going forward. I am also very happy with the amount of institutional support that we have gotten from Petra Knaus, the vice president of the university and Markus Edler from the Dahlem Research School as well. So just all around, it has been a very rewarding phase of my PhD to kind of have the impression that a lot of people really do appreciate what we are trying to accomplish and the work that we are trying to do. So that is very nice to hear from different people throughout the university.

Thank you so much, Maren, for joining us today and sharing all the details of your work with us.

Thank you a lot for having me.

We hope this gave everyone a clearer picture of what it’s like to be a member of the Doctoral Council. For more information about the council’s structure, visit the Dahlem Research School website. We will also include a link to the Doctoral Council FAQs on our podcast blog so you can revisit everything we discussed at your own pace. And of course we’ll include links to all the sources Maren mentioned today so you don’t have to search for them yourself. This was Dr. Marlies  Klamt for the DRS for Docs  at Berlin podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. Thanks for listening and we hope you’ll join us for our upcoming episodes.

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

Professor Dr. Cornelia Reiher was one of two recipients of the Supervisor Award 2023, an award presented annually by the Dahlem Research School for exceptional supervision of doctoral researchers. In this episode, Professor Reiher talks about what good supervision entails for her, how she supports her doctoral researchers and what she expects from them. We also talked about how she and her doctoral researchers dealt with the challenges during the pandemic, which particularly affected them due to their field research in Japan. Professor Reiher emphasizes the importance of recreational breaks and a good work-life balance in order not to lose creativity in the scientific creative process.

HIGHLIGHTS

„You can’t be creative and productive 24/7. That’s why these recovery phases are immensely important, especially for creative ideas. I think a lot of people, myself included, have the best ideas in their free time and not when they’re staring desperately at a screen.“

„The most important factor is not to lose the passion and enthusiasm for the project.“

From our interview with Prof. Reiher

AUDIO

Links

For more information on the excellent supervision award that is annually awarded by the Dahlem Research School see here.

TRANSCRIPT

INTRO
Welcome to a new episode of the Dahlem Research School podcast. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and I am happy to accompany you through today’s episode.
In this episode, you can expect another exciting interview with one of two winners of the Supervision Award, Professor Cornelia Reiher, who is a Japanologist at the FU Berlin and won the award in fall 2023.

In this interview we talk about the following:

How she plans to use the prize money

What is generally important to her when supervising doctoral researchers

What challenges she and her doctoral researchers, who are all doing field research, have faced during the pandemic and how they have dealt with these challenges

What she wishes from her doctoral researchers

Why she herself completed her doctorate on the train

And how she assesses the situation of doctoral researcher parents – and I can already tell you, more positively than I would have thought.

I also found her attitude to work-life balance, which we talk about at the end of the interview, particularly interesting.

I hope you enjoy listening to it now.

Prof. Reiher, please introduce yourself briefly.

I am a professor of Japanese Studies at the Free University of Berlin. My work focuses on the society and politics of contemporary Japan. And I deal with two larger topics. One is food and nutrition in Japan, but also culinary globalization. So I also have a project on Japanese cuisine in Berlin.

At the same time, the other is Japan’s rural areas. I am particularly interested in finding out how rural areas in Japan are changing against the backdrop of demographic change.

The two topics combine the larger issue of migration, i.e. on the one hand transnational migration of Japanese people to Germany, for example, and on the other hand urban-rural migration of Japanese people within Japan, as well as the role of transnational migrants in rural Japan.

Another topic I have dealt with a lot in recent years is qualitative methods in Japan research. It’s more about how do we actually research Japan? And in this context, I have also published a handbook that doctoral researchers also like to work with.

This is already the perfect segue, because even though that sounds like a very exciting field of research, we are going to talk about something else today, and that is that you have won an award for the exceptionally good supervision of doctoral researchers. How many doctoral researchers are you currently supervising?

There are currently five. Two are in a DFG project and the other three are at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies, where I am PI.

How did you find out that you had won the DRS Supervision Award and what was your first thought?

Well, I received an email and thought, oh wow, I’m really pleased that my work has been recognized. Especially from the doctoral researchers who were allowed to nominate me. In other words, it’s really nice when doctoral researchers are satisfied, because that’s not a given. After all, a doctorate is a fairly long-term, difficult and not entirely easy undertaking. A time with many ups and downs. And if the doctoral researchers then feel that they are well supported by their supervisor, i.e. by me, then I am extremely pleased.

I think that was a very nice recognition that comes with the award, but it also comes with a payout of 2,000 euros, which is intended for the further promotion of young scientists. How did you use the money, or how do you plan to use it in the future?

Yes, I think there are two big issues for which there is never enough money: proofreading the dissertations. One of my doctoral researchers is a native English speaker, but they all write in English. This means that it’s always nice to have the English proofread by a professional at the end if there’s a bit of money available. That’s one option I’m thinking about.
The other is, of course, conference travel. Because when the results are actually available, it’s nice to take them out into the world and present them to a specialist audience. So those are the two thoughts I have at the moment. I will discuss this with the doctoral researchers to see what their needs are.

I think that’s two great ideas and of course it’s also great that you then want to discuss this with the doctoral researchers. Can you still remember the first doctoral researchers you supervised and what it was like to suddenly be on the other side and guide someone in their scientific work? And what challenges, but perhaps also what wonderful moments can you remember?

This is quite a good time for this question because next week the first doctoral researcher I have ever supervised will be defending her dissertation. That was a bit of a lengthy process, because maybe I can say something about corona afterwards. This has been a very, very difficult time for Japanologists, especially those who have to conduct field research in Japan. I came to the FU in 2014 to teach at the graduate school and to get involved. That means that I was already involved in teaching doctoral researchers before I was officially allowed to supervise the first doctoral student, so it wasn’t the first time that I was allowed to supervise and advise doctoral researchers.
But being the first doctoral researcher of my own was of course a very intense experience. It wasn’t an easy path for either of us, precisely because of the many ups and downs. At some point, we ran out of funding and then, or actually especially during the pandemic, field research was not possible, so we had to go through some ups and downs together, not only intellectually but also personally.
After all, it wasn’t just the doctoral researchers who were handicapped during this time, but of course also the researchers who were already a bit further along. That affected me just as much as my doctoral researchers. And in this respect, I am very pleased that, despite these many hurdles and obstacles, it has now come to a successful conclusion.

Then I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the defense goes well next week. And I will ask you the question about corona and Japanese studies, but first I would like to talk a little more about doctoral supervision. I would be interested to know how you rate the importance of good supervision for the success of a doctorate.

Well, good supervision helps when there are problems, of course. I assume that most doctoral researchers are motivated to start because they are interested in working on a research topic in depth. This means that intrinsic motivation is usually very strong, especially at the beginning. But then, of course, such a doctorate proceeds in phases. Before the field research, most doctoral researchers are still in relatively good spirits, optimistically happy that they are now doctoral researchers. Especially in connection with the graduate school, you get to know a lot of new people, the Dahlem Research School offers fabulous workshops and then suddenly you’re all alone in the field.
And it may not work out the way you had imagined. Maybe nobody wants to conduct interviews, maybe access to the field is difficult. There are all kinds of intercultural problems that can arise and perhaps personal problems, loneliness, whatever. And I think it’s important to have good support. So that there is a relationship of trust, that you can turn to your doctoral supervisor to talk about it openly, to address it.
At the same time, however, and this is the strength of the graduate schools, I also point out, for example, that peer groups are very important because doctoral students never have this experience alone. And then simply getting support from other doctoral researchersis important. Interestingly, however, sometimes doctoral candidates in this situation don’t even realize that this is a possibility and that they can provide the impetus. And this also applies to the other phase after the field research, which is often very enjoyable, actually analyzing and writing the data. It’s quite a lonely process at your desk, after you’ve been on the road a lot and perhaps had some great adventures, to then say „make writing social“, i.e. write together, get together in writing groups, meet up, you don’t have to go through it alone. That’s an impulse that a good tutor should also give.
And of course I read everything I receive and comment on it openly and honestly. And of course that prevents situations in which a dissertation is submitted and then perhaps fails because nobody looked at it beforehand.

Yes, I agree with you 100 percent. Both in terms of the fact that you don’t have to do a doctorate alone. I always say that you don’t have to do a doctorate alone, just write your thesis alone. But also that it is good to exchange ideas with each other and that the supervisor is not the only person who can provide support.
Do you think there are also areas where it is not appropriate for them to provide support, where you say that the person doing the doctorate has to do it alone?

I see a doctorate as a process in which you learn to conduct research independently. And that of course also means that you have to establish contacts in the field independently and of course be able to work independently with the data and acquire certain methodological skills yourself, for example, if you don’t have them.
Of course, there are all kinds of offers for this, which I can also point out. But the work of data collection and data analysis can, of course, only be carried out independently by the doctoral student with support.

In my experience, the vast majority of doctoral candidates have problems with the fact that they don’t have enough accountability, i.e. commitment. Have you established structures to regularly review the progress of your doctoral students or do you say that this is now an area that is their responsibility?

Here I would differentiate a little between doctoral researchers at the graduate school, who are ultimately committed to themselves and their sponsor, and doctoral students who are working on a research project. I have to write a report at the end and I have to present the results and they are employed directly by me. I make sure that certain milestones are met or achievements are made. More so than with doctoral researchers, who can actually work on a free topic at the graduate school. But if I don’t hear anything for a while, I ask. At the same time, the graduate school also has milestones. So sometimes papers are due or literature reports and things like that, so you have to be careful that the doctoral researchers don’t get lost.

If you had to describe in one sentence what kind of supervisor you are or would like to be, what would that sentence be?


Good supervision means that you adapt to the needs of the doctoral candidates.

And thinking the other way around, what does your ideal doctoral researchers look like? What expectations do you have of them? What skills should they have, but perhaps also what human values?


Yes, ideally doctoral candidates are creative, passionate about their subject, interested and full of a thirst for knowledge and ideally friendly and cooperative.

That’s a bit different for everyone. I think your colleagues would perhaps give a different answer, but that’s exactly right. If you think back to your own doctoral studies, what influence do you think your relationship with your supervisor(s) back then had on how you work with doctoral researchers today and how you lead and guide them?

I myself did my doctorate in a Research Training Group and I can say that I really appreciated this experience of working together, and in some cases suffering through the doctoral period. That’s why it’s so important to me to encourage doctoral students today to get together with their peers, with their fellow researchers, to exchange ideas, perhaps even to plan their first publications together, to organize workshops. And perhaps also to be aware that these are the networks that may endure and become important in the future, regardless of whether they work in academia or perhaps outside academia.


Do you see a change in the function of supervisors of doctoral researchers? Do you think that supervision is different today than it was perhaps ten or 20 years ago?

Well, I only have one German doctoral researcher, all the others are international doctoral candidates. And I think that, on the one hand, there is certainly a change over time, but on the other hand, there are also different doctoral cultures that we have to deal with. I think that the expectations of supervisors are sometimes very different from what I experienced myself. I had a lot of freedom. I also didn’t expect my doctoral supervisor to read everything I sent. I always knew that the professors I was dealing with at the time were all very busy.
Today, the expectation is more that doctoral researchers want to play it safe in my opinion, prefer to ask again, want to be absolutely sure that they are going in the right direction, don’t make any mistakes. And I would perhaps also like to see a little more self-confidence and a little more freedom to be creative and solve the problem yourself first, or perhaps with the help of peers. In other words, to dare to be more proactive again.

I find it very exciting that you have just mentioned that your working group or the group of doctoral researchers that you supervise is very international. How do you deal with the fact that there are perhaps very different expectations and approaches?


This is a work in progress. Our working language is English. And we come across problems from time to time that I would never have thought of. The only thing we can do is to talk openly with each other and explain how the German university system works, perhaps also how the job market works, and hope that the next problem, which is sure to come, will be addressed just as openly. And I believe that a basis of trust and direct communication is also important here. Sometimes that works more, sometimes less well.

But all your doctoral researchers are on site with you in Berlin when you’re not doing field research in Japan?


Yes and no. So perhaps we will also have to address the tiresome issue of funding. Some of the doctoral researchers whose scholarships or positions have expired and who are not yet finished are no longer on site. So at the moment I’m in a phase where only three of the doctoral researchers are still here on site, two are no longer, so in principle we are now doing more of what we practiced during the pandemic, namely communicating online. At the same time, these are also the strategies that we practiced during the field research. In this respect, it no longer seems so unusual to me, but is really, really helpful.


Let’s stay directly on the subject of funding. What challenges do you see, or perhaps you have seen, during corona, but also now in particular?

Yes, first of all, scholarships are of course rare, especially for foreign students. The graduate school where I am a PI receives DAAD scholarships and China Scholarship Council scholarships, but these are not available to everyone interested in doing a doctorate, for example not to German citizens. And secondly, you can of course raise third-party funds to supervise doctoral researchers. But these then expire. This means that the duration of a doctorate is clearly limited, usually to three years. And for projects with intensive field research, this is actually relatively unrealistic and almost impossible to achieve. And that’s why it would of course be nice if the FU were to put a little more money into the graduate schools if it wants good doctoral researchers, but also good supervision.

Could one solution then also be to narrow down the projects? In other words, not to do without field research, but to make the project smaller overall?

Yes, but a doctorate should also have a certain level. You certainly have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, you never use all the data that you bring back from field research. Even if it’s tempting, of course, it won’t work. It’s also my job to curb some of the enthusiasm, to say, look what you have here, you can actually leave it as it is and save the rest for papers. But in the end, it just takes time. We work with Japanese informants, Japanese-language sources. So on the one hand, we have to take the foreign language component into account.
And on the other hand, field research is also something that you can’t plan well if there are problems somehow, that you can’t get access to the field, that the timing is perhaps also bad because it’s a time when no one can talk to you. Then you have to be a bit creative. I think the pandemic has also opened up many new opportunities for us that we perhaps hadn’t even considered before, namely that you can also conduct online interviews, that you can even do digital ethnography.
So these are all newer methods that, I believe, also benefit doctoral researchers. At the same time, what you just mentioned, namely the problem of too much data, does not solve the problem at all, but actually increases the amount of data and many doctoral researchers naturally feel overwhelmed by it, and here it is important to try to narrow things down by talking to each other.

Do you do that in addition then, the online interviews for example, or could that also replace the field research on site?


That depends on the topic. I have a project that I am currently supervising, which is mainly about what policymakers say about rural revitalization policies, so I don’t think you have to be on site. There are also a lot of written sources, policy papers and so on. But if you want to find out how people do certain things in their everyday lives, then it makes a lot of sense to be on the ground. We have now done a lot of hybrid ethnography. This means that we conducted online field research during the pandemic and were able to go back into the field afterwards.
And it’s very interesting to observe the differences. In other words, what you learn when you look at the online representation of various practices or online practices and what you don’t see. For example, sometimes you don’t even notice that people might be neighbors because it’s never been an issue. And many things that you would otherwise not even notice, you can actually only notice on site. That’s why I would argue in favor of maintaining field research, on-site.

Yes, you’ve just said a lot about the situation during corona. Perhaps we can still talk a little more in detail about what the particular challenges were in your field, i.e. in Japanese Studies, during the pandemic and how you dealt with them?

Yes, with pleasure. Japan is one of the few countries where there was a complete ban on non-citizens entering the country between 2020 and 2022. Our project started in October 2020, so it was a challenge to get the doctoral researchers to Berlin in the first place. After a week in which I think we actually saw each other here on site, there was a new lockdown and we were really only able to meet online for six months.
That was of course difficult for many reasons. On the one hand for motivation, but also of course for getting to know each other. And especially for international doctoral researchers who were new to Berlin, it also meant that they didn’t get to know anyone and felt quite alone.
I then tried to solve this with a study group. We met online, sometimes every week during the pandemic. Since all of my doctoral researchers have something to do with migration and rural Japan, it worked out quite well and we invited more and more people or they somehow found us, so the study group became bigger and bigger, and more international.

And then we started a blog at the same time, so that the doctoral researchers, even if they couldn’t go into the field yet, could at least start writing small posts about what they had already read and what we had discussed, which helped them to get into writing, so that there was simply the feeling that a text was being created. And of course it was also a very good exercise. But there were always crises. The Japanese government briefly opened the borders, but closed them again immediately afterwards. This naturally led to a lot of uncertainty and increased psychological stress in the group.
And then we simply tried to support each other. We organized a small online Christmas party. So it was really more about giving social encouragement again and again and reminding people how we could perhaps carry out the project by other means. And then we came up with these digital tools. And that was good that we were able to continue the project at all, that the doctoral researchers were able to continue their doctorates, even if they were fortunately all able to travel to Japan again for real field research in 2022.

And what delays did this cause? For some, it must have been almost two years, if you actually wanted to fly there at the time when the borders were closed?

Yes, that is not yet entirely foreseeable. We now have some work that is still in progress. I think it will take one to two years. There’s also parenthood, which often happens during a doctorate. In this respect, several factors have come together that have been challenging. But the great thing is that I also saw how wonderfully the doctoral researchers coped in the end, even though they may not have felt that way when it was difficult. So I think we really made the best of it and, above all, discovered new methods that we wouldn’t have thought of before. And I think we all grew together. And I thought that was very, very nice.

So in the end, the result was a positive one, even if the general conditions weren’t exactly ideal.

Well, if you now apply the criterion of rapid completion, then certainly not. But when it comes to intellectual growth, then I would say yes.

Yes, and above all, you have now described it in such a way that you have developed strategies and methods that can be continued and are conceivable in the future, perhaps only as a supplement, which you would not have thought of before.
Fortunately, there was no pandemic during your own doctorate. What was the biggest challenge you faced during your own doctorate?

Well, I already had one child when I started my doctorate and then had a second and then my scholarship came to an end at some point. And then I had a full-time job in the last year in another city and basically finished my doctorate on the train. I don’t think that was so easy in retrospect. But I think that might be a good thing, because I can then show my doctoral researchers that it’s possible. So yes, perhaps as a positive example, even if ideally everything is a bit easier.

Of course I didn’t know that, that you did your doctorate with two children. Perhaps you have some special advice for doctoral researcher parents?

Very difficult. My general impression is that parents are better organized in their doctoral studies. I believe that the procrastination time is simply not there. In other words, if I can shovel four hours off, then I work more concentrated during those four hours because I don’t know exactly when I’ll have time again. That’s why I believe that doctoral researcher parents, if they have a good support network, are actually not in such a bad position. And of course you have to ensure a work-life balance somehow, find a balance, allow yourself to do nothing for a day.
So I think that’s the biggest problem anyway, that a lot of time is wasted being ashamed that you haven’t done anything. That’s okay. And then you might feel refreshed and get a lot more done. And it’s not just assembly line work. There are days when creativity doesn’t flow and it’s difficult. And then it’s okay to say, okay, I’ll take a break for today and pick my child up from daycare earlier and do something nice and then things will work out better tomorrow. But all the small and big disasters when the child gets sick and there’s a deadline, how to deal with it successfully, I don’t think there’s a magic formula. Unfortunately.

I am a great advocate of taking regular vacations and days off. I mean regularly, every week – not the vacation, but the days off, to simply recharge the batteries and then move forward better and with more energy. How do you see it? Have you ever had to send a doctoral researcher on vacation? Do you say that’s their responsibility? Or how do you talk to your doctoral researchers about the fact that time off can perhaps also be an important thing, and one without a guilty conscience?

Of course, I can’t send anyone on vacation, but there have been situations where doctoral researchers who are extremely exhausted, especially during field research, have given feedback that they can’t do any more. And then, of course, I’ve told them to take a few days off. I see it the same way you do. It’s extremely important. You can’t be creative and productive 24/7. And that’s why these recovery phases are immensely important, especially for creative ideas. I think a lot of people, myself included, have the best ideas in their free time and not when they’re staring desperately at a screen.

Yes, I absolutely agree with you. Is there another important point, an important area that I forgot to mention, that we should definitely talk about today?

Yes, I think it is perhaps important for doctoral researchers, when they are desperate, to simply remember again the passion with which they started the project and the curiosity. I always find it helpful to perhaps take another look at the first synopsis. Most of the time you end up there again in a roundabout way anyway, which I find very interesting. So I think it’s always good to remember why you started, even if it’s difficult at the time. The most important thing is not to lose your passion and enthusiasm for the project.

I think that’s a very nice thing to say at the end. Thank you very much, Professor Reiher, for this interview.

Thank you very much.

OUTRO
If you enjoyed this episode, please listen to the other episodes as well. For example, there are more interviews on the topic of good doctoral supervision that you can listen to and also an episode in which you can find out what you can do as a doctoral candidate to build a good relationship with your supervisor.
This was Dr. Marlies Klamt for the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School of Freie Universität Berlin.

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

In this episode, Prof. Pagel was one of the two winners of the Supervisor Award 2022, which is an award presented annually by the Dahlem Research School for exceptional supervision of doctoral researchers. Prof. Pagel talks about what makes a good, but also a bad doctorate relationship, what he himself experienced during his doctorate and what one would have to do to win him over as a supervisor. He also talked about many other things, including micromanagement, answering emails outside of working hours and what doctoral researchers can do on their part to ensure a good relationship with their supervisor. Enjoy listening to the interview!

HIGHLIGHTS

„I’m not just here to give lectures, but one of my central tasks is to supervise doctoral students. And to turn them into real scientists with solid specialist training.“

„In the natural sciences, you have to realize that if someone starts their doctorate and after about a year and a half doesn’t understand more about the subject than the person supervising them, then something has gone wrong.“

from our interview with Prof. Pagel

AUDIO

LINKS

For more information on the annual supervision award by the Dahlem Research School see here.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro

Welcome to the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and today I am interviewing Professor Dr. Kevin Pagel. Mr. Pagel was one of the two winners of the Supervisor Award 2022, which is an award presented annually by the Dahlem Research School for exceptional supervision of doctoral researchers. The special thing about this award is that doctoral students nominate their supervisors themselves. If you also have an outstanding supervisor, you can find the link for the nomination in the show notes. I talked to Prof. Pagel about what makes a good, but also a bad doctorate relationship, what he himself experienced during his doctorate and what I would have to do to win him over as a supervisor.
But we also talk about many other things, including micromanagement, answering emails outside of working hours and what doctoral researchers can do on their part to ensure a good relationship with their supervisor.
And now I hope you enjoy listening to the interview!

Interview

Professor Pagel, could you please briefly introduce yourself?

My name is Kevin Pagel, I am a professor of bio-organic chemistry at the Free University of Berlin. In our research, we mainly deal with the structural investigation of complex biomolecules, especially carbohydrates and sugars, which we look at more closely using various methods. In particular, we use mass spectrometry methods to determine the weights of the molecules.

And you also supervise doctoral researchers.

I also supervise doctoral researchers. At the moment, there are eight students in my working group who are aiming for a doctorate.

You are one of the two winners of the 2022 Supervisor Award from Freie Universität Berlin. What was your first thought when you found out that you were receiving this award?

Well, first of all, I was delighted to have received this award because I actually knew that it existed. And above all, I knew that my own students had to nominate someone. And of course it’s a very special honor when your own people nominate you for such an award. It has twice the impact.

This prize is awarded for exemplary supervision of doctoral researchers. In your opinion, what constitutes good doctoral supervision?

Well, I think the most important thing when supervising doctoral researchers is to strike a balance between mentoring and providing support, but at the same time giving them enough freedom. Nobody comes to a university for a doctoral position like this who isn’t intrinsically motivated anyway. And that’s why I’m not a big fan of giving people too many guidelines. First and foremost, it’s about really getting the best potential out of everyone. And that includes giving students a certain amount of freedom.
At the same time, of course, you have to make sure that no one drifts off course and that everyone keeps their focus. And that really is a big challenge. So taking good enough care, but not taking too good care.

Yes, I definitely agree with you. When you think back to your own doctoral studies, what experiences did you have with your doctoral supervisor? Perhaps there was something that you particularly appreciated about your supervisor or perhaps something that you remember negatively, where you say I want to consciously distance myself from them today?

In my own doctorate, I actually experienced exactly what I am now trying to convey to my own students. Because I had an incredible number of opportunities. I had a great deal of academic freedom and I was also able to determine the topics I worked on to a certain extent. But what was always there was the infrastructure and the resources to actually carry out the experiments. And that was very, very productive. Because, as I said, as a young person in particular, you are bursting with ideas.
It would be downright stupid to cut it all off and limit it and not let people do it. And that was definitely the case during my doctorate. I was able to express myself very, very well and had a lot of academic freedom.

I asked you what you think makes a good doctoral relationship. What do you think constitutes poor doctoral supervision?

Well, I think the fine line between too much supervision and too little supervision cannot be overestimated. You really have to find a fine balance. I see it more often in my day-to-day work that supervisors go into micromanagement and then make really, really detailed specifications about what should be achieved when, what should be written down and how, and so on. And that often leads to any creativity, which is the greatest asset of the young people we work with, simply being cut off. And that’s exactly what we really need to prevent. And then the whole thing can become very, very productive.

You’ve already mentioned the balance between providing support as a supervisor and at the same time giving doctoral researchers their freedom. What problems can the doctoral researchers you supervise turn to you for help with and where do you perhaps also say that this is the limit, that this is something they have to manage themselves?

In my experience, one of the biggest problems that students have in their day-to-day work is writer’s block. This is really the thing that occurs most frequently by far, that the data is there, the experiments are done, everything looks great. We’ve had presentations and meetings about it and now the publication can actually be written and then it starts to get tough. And that’s exactly why we’ve actually established a kind of master plan, a kind of system for how to ultimately turn the data into a publication. This follows a relatively clear pattern of what should be written down and when.
In other words, it usually starts with a concept sketch, then the illustrations are created, then you have a meeting with everyone involved, then the illustrations are used to knit a red thread for a publication, which is then underpinned with the appropriate words in the next step in order to turn it into a publication. In my experience, this is very, very helpful for students, especially those who have major problems with writing. And in my opinion, that really is the biggest challenge for doctoral researchers at the moment.

That sounds great. So I can imagine it as a kind of handbook?

There’s even a PDF and a presentation.

And you get that right at the beginning of the doctorate or only when you start writing?

No, I give this presentation in the working group seminars at regular intervals, also elsewhere. And the students can of course also download it from the website. And it exists here, it’s all over the internal folders. And people are familiar with it and know that it exists.

Yes, great. I think it’s a really great idea, because I know that writer’s block can be a real hindrance and can drag out the doctorate unnecessarily. Even if the supervision is going well in principle, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be any conflicts. After all, a doctorate is a time when there are numerous challenges and often crises. How do you deal with it if there is a crisis between you and one of the people you are supervising?

I actually try to resolve conflicts relatively openly. In this context, resolving conflicts openly also means that everyone is allowed to have their say. It’s not always easy, but there’s little point in carrying such conflicts around forever. And I then usually try to have a clarifying conversation with the people concerned. This has actually always worked quite well so far because, as I said, intrinsic motivation is inherent in all doctoral researchers, which is why it has always worked quite well. Occasionally there is friction between the members of the working group, but this can usually be resolved relatively easily.

In other words, you would invite the relevant employees to a meeting and try to clarify this together at the table?

Exactly. A meeting is then arranged and then you try to talk to each other and solve the problem. It’s actually relatively trivial things that are usually involved. It’s about authorship, about publications. It’s about who gets to go on which business trip or who is nominated for which award. But all of that can usually be resolved. So it’s rare for really deep conflicts to arise.

And do you sometimes have to make decisions that you think I would rather not have made?

Well, there are decisions that can be unpleasant because sometimes you just can’t decide things properly. That’s just the way it is. I would say that I’ve never had to make a decision that really made my stomach hurt. Not even afterwards.

Assuming I wanted to do a doctorate with you and asked you to supervise me, what would I have to bring to the table for you to accept me as a doctoral candidate?

As a rule, the requirements are actually relatively low, because you have to imagine that if you dive really deep into a research project like this, you usually don’t know what it’s about beforehand anyway. So there are no experts at doctoral level, at least when the students are just starting out. That’s why the skills, methodological and analytical skills are very, very important to me. In other words, the basic knowledge should be halfway there and creative thinking and so on should also be present. As far as the actual techniques are concerned, you learn everything on the job. You don’t have to bring too much with you.

You mentioned methodical and analytical skills and creative thinking. How do you check that this is present in a person?

As a rule, almost nobody in my working group starts a doctorate without having seen the person in a different context beforehand. These are either research internships that people complete as part of their studies. These are presentations at conferences. You’ve talked to the person in question in other ways. And you get a really good feel for whether it works and whether people are capable of doing it. I wouldn’t feel comfortable giving applicants any tests to find out what they are particularly good at. I don’t think that would do the job justice either.

Do you occasionally accept people via initial applications? In other words, people you haven’t been in contact with before at conferences or who you don’t already know from your Master’s degree, for example?

Yes, that has actually happened several times. There has also been a situation where we advertised a position and several suitable people applied. And then there were two new doctoral researchers and not just one. That was actually quite good.

Great, if you have the funds to hire both of them, all the better.
One question I’m always asked is, if I apply to someone now, to a professor who doesn’t know me yet, and I’d like to do my doctorate with that person, should I send them a fully prepared exposé? Or do I first write who I am, maybe send a CV and then ask if there are any projects I could work on? Of course, this is also subject-specific, but what about you? Do you prefer more concrete ideas or is it more important that the person fits in with you and your working group in principle?

It’s actually unusual to come with fully developed ideas, but it’s more the case that you develop ideas together and also try to decide together where the person fits in best based on their own skills. So it’s actually more the case that I talk to suitable candidates, give them a short presentation and simply show them what topics we are researching in the working group. And then we try to identify a topic together and work out together in which direction it could go. Of course, you often have guidelines from larger research projects as to which areas to research. However, these positions are advertised in such a way that they explicitly state what the doctoral position is for.

And what do you do if you have a person in front of you and you say that the CV fits well, the skills fit well, but I somehow have a strange gut feeling or I don’t like the person, I can’t say exactly what it is, but something bothers me. Would you still put them on the shortlist or would you say that’s a direct exclusion criterion?

Well, if the person is suitable and there are no formal objections, then it definitely makes sense to shortlist them. There are rules about that. There doesn’t always have to be perfect harmony in a working group. There can also be… Minor conflicts can also be managed. That’s not the problem. Everyone doesn’t always have to be a perfect match. And in any case, you should also take such applicants into account.

For whom are you not the right supervisor?

What’s problematic is when people really expect very, very detailed supervision every day. I know there are colleagues who do this, who issue very, very detailed guidelines, where it is really clear week after week what the students have to do. I can’t do that and I don’t want to do that either, to be honest, because it’s far too restrictive for me. In other words, if someone really needs a very, very detailed work plan and supervision, then I’m probably not the right person to talk to. I provide resources, I provide the monetary means to carry out the experiments, but I’m not going to check exactly what people are doing every day.

How often do you talk to your doctoral researchers about their projects that are relevant to their doctorates?

Well, of course we have a working group seminar. That’s what everyone does. We get together once a week. There’s usually a presentation and we talk openly about topics. I meet with the doctoral researchers at least once every six months and keep a record of the whole thing with a plan. But of course we also try to exchange ideas as best we can in our everyday lives. That means I also go to the lab or to people’s desks and talk to them and try to get a feel for where things are going wrong and where they are not. It’s actually a habit I picked up a bit from one of my postdoc’s supervisors. She was very busy, had a very, very large working group and still managed to go round once a week and talk to everyone for five minutes. And that really is a great thing. I also really appreciated that.

In other words, you actually always have an overview of who is standing roughly where and can then also see if things are stuck somewhere and the person is simply not making progress.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, you have to. It’s relatively important, because the end result should be a doctorate and a failed doctorate doesn’t just reflect negatively on the doctoral researcher, but also on me. It’s actually my job to make sure that the students can complete their doctorates properly and quickly.

In an ideal world, definitely. Unfortunately, the experiences that my coachees have with their supervisors are not always like that. Especially in doctorates in the humanities and social sciences, it can sometimes happen that you don’t have any contact at all for two years if you are doing an external doctorate. From this point of view, a weekly exchange, even if it is only short, is of course very ideal and very good for the doctoral researchers.

Yes. It has to be said that many of the doctoral projects in my department are directly linked to larger third-party funded research projects. And there is always a kind of reporting obligation for these. This means that if the doctorate doesn’t work, the research project won’t work either. And then, of course, you get into trouble at some point when these reports have to be written. That’s why it’s in my own interest to make sure that something sensible comes out of it.
The most important thing is that you see it as a bit of a job. I mean, that’s why I’m here. I’m not just here to give lectures, but it’s one of my central tasks to supervise doctoral researchers. And to turn them into real academics with solid specialist training. And of course you want to do that well. And you have to think about the best way to do that.

And what does that give you on a personal level?

Above all, it’s really nice to see how people mature. They often come to me when they are just starting their Master’s degree, at the beginning of their Master’s degree and have very, very good theoretical knowledge and are totally fit. But in many other areas, academic writing, thought structures and so on, they lack a bit of experience.
And when you really supervise people for three, four or five years, sometimes over these different stages, it’s really great to see, especially when they then go out and acquire major funding projects themselves, take up great positions and write great publications.
One of my first doctoral researchers has actually become a junior professor. That’s really great to see, of course. It’s a bit of an accolade.

Now, a good relationship between doctoral supervisors and doctoral candidates is a two-way street. Perhaps you have a few tips for doctoral researchers on what they can do to build a good relationship with their supervisor and then maintain it. So what can I do specifically as a doctoral researcher to ensure that my supervisor is happy with me and what should I perhaps not do?

In any case, what is always very, very useful is to seek contact, to seek discussions. Not all the time, but I think it’s very important to keep in touch. What always goes down very, very well is actually developing your own ideas and concepts. I also see this with my colleagues. It’s something that goes down very well everywhere if the doctoral researchers really immerse themselves in the topic.
In the natural sciences, you simply have to realize that if someone starts a doctorate and after about a year and a half doesn’t understand more about the topic than the supervisor, then something has gone wrong. And interaction often takes place on this basis. And that’s really great fun, because you’re dealing with experts once people have got to grips with a topic.

Does that mean you still learn a lot from your doctoral researchers?

Absolutely. So it’s not just the subject matter, but sometimes it’s simply the creativity, the train of thought that is completely different from my own. And sometimes you scratch your head and ask yourself, what is this actually about? And then at some point you realize it’s a really great idea, let’s do it.

How do you deal with the fact that you are now working on publications together with your colleagues, for example, and you have different working styles or different approaches? For example, if you have a deadline for a paper, there are people who do everything at the last minute and others who try to finish as far in advance as possible. How do you deal with this when you have different approaches?

Yes, I actually adapt a bit to the needs of the doctoral researchers. I actually experience this on a daily basis. There are students who come to me with their manuscripts four weeks before the deadline, simply to have enough time, and I then try to process them quickly. But if the house is on fire and a paper has to be finished within three days at the very end, then I get stuck in too. It’s just very different. I actually try to meet everyone’s needs in that respect.

How do you handle communication after official working hours, i.e. in the evening, at weekends, on public holidays?

I actually saw this once from a colleague in England. I don’t have this in my own email signature, but I tell my employees this and they all know it. Sometimes it suits me very well to send an email at nine in the evening. But that doesn’t mean that I expect it to be answered at nine in the evening. Just because it suits me doesn’t mean I expect the others to do the same.

In other words, you also rely on clear communication in this case and say that I do it and don’t set an implicit example, which is what it is in principle when you set an example, but I make it very transparent that it’s something I do because it fits into my daily routine, but that I don’t expect anyone else to do the same.

Exactly, that’s how I actually communicate it. Everyone in my working group actually knows that too. Especially when you have a family, you often have to answer certain things in the evening. Or you’re on a business trip and you quickly reply from the train and so on. And everyone knows that I don’t expect anyone to reply to an email at eight o’clock on a Friday evening. That’s clear to everyone. If I get an answer on Monday morning, that’s perfectly fine.

Do you see a change in the role of doctoral supervisors? I’m thinking of a longer period of time, such as the last 10 or 20 years, but perhaps also the last few years due to covid.

Yes, I think the trend over the last 10 or 20 years is that hierarchies have generally become much flatter. In the past, it was often seen as my doctoral student. Today, the view is actually more that you work together with the doctoral students and that you build things up for each other and so on. And that’s not just the case in my working group, I think it’s the case everywhere, that it’s all becoming a bit flatter.
Due to covid… We’re not even feeling the direct effects so much here at doctoral student level. We’re seeing it more with Master’s students, because they’re just slowly finishing up. And it’s mainly the practical skills where more supervision is needed at the moment. That is noticeable.

How do you explain that?

It certainly has to do with the fact that far fewer practical courses could take place in the laboratories themselves during the coronavirus period. Practical work was already massively restricted. Another major problem was that students were no longer able to interact with each other as actively because they no longer saw each other. There’s simply a difference between making appointments by phone or online and simply meeting in the corridor and talking about things. And that already leads to major restrictions and especially the research internships, which are quite common here, where students sometimes work on a topic in a working group for 15 weeks, were already extremely limited during the corona period. And you notice that.

Mr. Pagel, is there another important point that we have forgotten that we should definitely address?

I think it’s really important… At every stage of academic training, there are certain criteria that are used to measure or evaluate. It’s about publications and grades and things like that. And I sometimes have the feeling that one aspect that is much, much more important in other European countries is falling behind, namely the ability to organize your own funding. In my opinion, this is actually still a little underdeveloped in Germany. I know this from international colleagues, where it is quite common for doctoral students to be much more actively involved in writing applications, in writing their own grant applications and so on and so forth.

Is that something you are also trying to actively promote?

Absolutely. I also help people to write their own proposals. This skill becomes extremely important later on, especially if you want to stay in science, because a great proposal that you get through sometimes counts as much as five good publications or ten. This is a very, very important criterion for your future academic career. And you can’t start practicing this early enough.

Is that also a point that you address at some point when someone tells you that they have decided that they would rather go into industry after their doctorate, that they just want to get it over with as quickly as possible, or that they are really aiming for a professorship, that you then also try to support people in different ways and provide different kinds of assistance?

Absolutely. Of course, it’s really important to focus a little on the professional goals of the person in question. Sometimes I even assign topics in this direction. So it does happen that someone comes to me and says I want to do a doctorate and then do this and that in industry. Then we sometimes even select the topics where the whole thing would fit well. Because the research that is required in industry or the skills that are required there are not always completely the same as in an academic laboratory.

Mr. Pagel, thank you very much for this wonderful interview.

Thank you very much.

Outro

After this very informative conversation, I would just like to remind you once again that you can also put your supervisor in the running for the Supervisor Award. This happens once a year and we provide information about the deadlines on the website and in the newsletter. So it’s best to register directly so that you don’t miss the next round.
On the website for this episode, we also link to the Supervisor Award page, where you can see who has won the award since 2011, if you’re curious.

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