INTRO

Hello and welcome to the DRS podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and I’m your host for today’s episode. Today I’m speaking with Dr. Klaus Wiehl from Freie Universität Berlin. He works in a coordinating role in the context of the European University Alliance Una Europa and is responsible for bringing together different projects and activities across the university.

In this episode, we talk about career paths beyond research at universities and what it can look like to move from a doctorate into a non-research role within academia. You will hear, for example, what working in a coordination role at university actually looks like in practice, which career options exist beyond research that many doctoral researchers might not be aware of, which skills from a doctorate are useful in non-research roles, and what challenges can come up when moving from research into a different kind of role. So let’s get started with the interview.

INTERVIEW

To start, could you briefly introduce yourself? What did you study and what is your current role at Freie Universität Berlin?

Very glad to do so. So I studied German literature and linguistics, English and American literature and linguistics and German as a foreign language. I then did a PhD in German literature and I now work as the institutional coordinator or in the language of Una Europa, senior local lead at Freie Universität Berlin, which means that I oversee all the activities and projects and try to coordinate basically all things Una Europa at Freie Universität.

You just mentioned that you did a doctorate in German literature and then moved into a non-research role at universities. Did you already know when you started your doctorate that you didn’t want to stay in academic research, or how did that transition come about?

It was a bit of a development, to be honest, a process that didn’t start right away, because if I had known from the very beginning, I’m not sure if I would have found the energy to completely finish the PhD. So this transition started more or less, I would say, in the ending phase of my doctorate, where I was lucky enough, shortly before I actually handed in my dissertation, that I was offered a job that was partly science management, partly academic researcher. So a coordination role where I could be a bit of both or be present in both worlds. So in that respect, I had a bit of luck, I must also admit. And it was made a bit easier for me than maybe for someone who would have to search completely for their own, how they would go about this.

And also, as you already said, today you work in the context of European University alliances, like Una Europa. What does your role actually look like in practice? You already told us a little bit about it. Can you go into a bit more detail and maybe let us also know how one of your normal working days looks like?

To start off, there is no normal day. There is a lot of very, very different roles and tasks that have to be fulfilled and lived. But in general, so I am what is called in German a „Referent“, which is basically meaning that I report to the rectorate. So I report directly to the vice president international, to the head of the international affairs division and the president in all things Una Europa, which means I prepare meetings where they participate. I write briefings. That is what a referent usually does. Apart from that, I am a coordinator in the very basic sense of the role that I try to communicate with everyone, at least has a certain role to play in the alliance at Freie Universität, which can be up to 40 to 80 people, regarding on how you count it. So meaning gathering information, trying to support people in the projects that they are pursuing, writing reports, a little bit of administration also, but I have also colleagues who do this. So a normal day is reading a lot of text, and I think we will talk about this later on, and writing a lot of text.

Thanks for sharing the activities you usually do during your working days. Let’s zoom out a bit and look more broadly at careers beyond research at universities. Many doctoral researchers mainly think of the research path when they consider careers at universities. Besides your own job as a „Referent“ you just told us about, what other options are there that people might not be aware of?

I think there’s a plethora of things to do when you consider the specific tasks. But in general, of course, it’s probably not as many. So when people think about university, they only see science and they see administration. But in reality, even there, there’s more things to do. So I come from the literary science or the humanities, where if you’re not completely into research, you could always look for a position that is more teaching oriented. Not that there are so many. And in Germany, the system is still very, I would say, focused on you’re either in the preparation of becoming a professor or you’re a professor. Those are the two options.

But in reality, of course, you can be a person like a lecturer, it’s called in the English speaking sphere, which would then focus more on teaching. But if you really want to do this job, that’s another question, because it is a lot of work. Apart from that, what we usually call the administration there’s very, very different roles. Like for example, you could be a grant manager at the faculty level. So you could help prepare writing grants or keep track of the third party funds that are coming in. You could do the same thing at the central administration level and advise people on how to apply for funding. You can play a lot of roles in where I am based in, the international division. So even at university, I think more and more job opportunities are opening up right now because the role of the university in itself probably has not changed completely, but the way that universities communicate about what they are doing has changed.

So if you have a specific interest in science communication, I’m sure that in the coming years, there will be more jobs than even now opening up in that sphere, for example. So between administration and science management, there’s always something going on that’s worth looking into.

And based on your experience, what makes these roles attractive career options?

I think you can use in these job opportunities a lot what you’ve learned during your academic career. And maybe you have a bit more of a predictability. But I think it’s important to stress that even there, it’s not a given that there is complete stability. Because also there seems to be a misunderstanding in that there is a fundamental difference between administration and research or teaching. So when you change sides, you’re, of course, always in a fixed contract. And that is not the case. So even if you work in science management or administration, there’s a lot of positions that have limited contracts because they are project-based. And with the same thing that is happening in academic positions, be it either in a qualification phase or because things are project-based, same applies to management and administration. There’s roles that are limited.

So it’s not like you’re changing sides because it’s much more easy, but once you have acquired a certain standing or learned a few things, I would say it is easier to predict where the voyage is going.

As you have experience in both fields, what would you say are the biggest differences between working as a researcher and working in a non-research role at university?

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind would be that speaking about my field, you spend much less time in a library, of course, but you don’t necessarily read less and you don’t necessarily communicate less. Of course, I was a teacher. I do not do that anymore. But still, one of my main tasks is to convey information. I just do it in a different way. So in that respect, I would say that having been a teacher at a higher education institution is a very good preparation. But yeah, as I said, it’s a lot about writing. It’s still a lot about interpreting, analyzing, but probably in a different kind of language.

When you look back at your own transition, what was the most challenging adjustment when moving from research into a non-research role for you personally?

Well, all of a sudden, it’s not about your project anymore, and it’s not about your seminar anymore. It’s about so many other things that you have to keep in mind. And even as an academic, there is always a certain part of self-administration or really good coordination that is necessary if you want to be successful. But to do this on a central level and not just for yourself, of course, now a lot of other people are dependent on you all of a sudden. And that is, I wouldn’t say more, but a different kind of responsibility.

And how would you say, can you make that transition easier? Or do you say it’s just something over the years you get used to it and it comes by itself?

I think you can learn this, but I think to a certain degree, this is also a question of personal style. So for me, for example, I felt it was always a bit uneasy to promote myself as an academic, or if you think about networking: to stand up and be the person that wants to draw attention to me as a person, as an individual. I do this right now, but now I do it for the institution. So I try to network for other people. And for me, personally, this feels a bit easier. But as I said, I don’t know if this is something that you can completely learn, but that is also a question of personal style. What you definitely can learn and should learn if you haven’t done so before, is a style of good communication, brief and precise communication. Again, talking about the discipline where I am from, where this is not completely natural all the time.

But you also have to be an extremely good listener if you want to be successful in science management. Because you’re definitely now in a supporting role. It’s not about you come first, you and your project, but it’s trying to advance projects of others.

Do you have any tips on how you can make your style of communication better?

I think you have to, again, start by listening to other people and take a lot of time to think how you want to communicate. Not saying that when you’re doing research and writing a thesis, writing a paper, presenting a poster, you’re not doing this. Of course you’re doing this, but you’re talking to another audience and you’re talking in another language. When you’re working as a sort of medium between administration and science, which is the role that I have, you have to talk different languages and you have to interpret what people are saying and find the middle ground in between what people want and do. So you have to use the skills that you have usually as an academic to learn a new language or learn new languages and cultures and try to adapt to these. Because also in my field, you’re not only talking about different academic cultures within one institution, but also about different academic cultures in international settings, which complicate things, obviously.

Do you want to tell us a bit more about that?

Well, we have completely different academic calendars, obviously, but apart from that, I would really say we have academic cultures that are differently, where you usually would say, oh yes, a chemist from Germany or Belgium are practically the same, whereas a chemist from Germany and a person from political science can’t talk to each other. And this might be true to a certain degree, but in general, the cultural differences come to play, of course, always in an international setting. So I think on more than one level, intercultural competency is something that you have to be aware of and that you should try to acquire in any sort of coordinating role.

You just shared with us the most challenging adjustment. Let’s talk a bit about the flip side. What do you enjoy most about working in a non-research role? It could be more than one thing, obviously, as well.

The most interesting thing to me is that all I do is new every day. So new tasks, new roles, new projects, but that my work is also very, very interdisciplinary. So I’m not doing research in physics and I’m not doing research in chemistry, obviously, but I’m in contact with these people and nonetheless, I can support their projects. So I have a whole new oversight of what is going on in the whole institution.

And in my case, also the partner universities in Una Europa that I work with. And the next thing would be is that I work in such an international setting. Of course, all science, all education and research is and should be international. It doesn’t work any other way today anymore, of course. But me, for example, each week I work with my colleagues from all over Europe and I have meetings with them, sometimes more regular than with the colleagues that are next door to my office. So this is a truly international setting to an intensity which I as a researcher never experienced before.

I imagine a lot of our listeners are intrigued by now by this path and might consider a role beyond research at universities themselves. I would like to talk with you about transferable skills, because I assume that many doctoral researchers wonder what skills from a doctorate are actually useful outside of research. You mentioned a few before. But I would like to know, are there other skills that you would say carry over well? And I guess we might have to distinguish a bit between humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and so on.

Yeah, totally. So I would always say on the one hand, of course you can study something like science management. So there are study programs where you can do this as a master program. But if you’re doing a PhD in any discipline, I think you’re almost there because so many of the skills that you acquire as an early career researcher or as a researcher in early career stages, you can use these things and you should be an expert.

And that is gathering information, analyzing this information, interpreting it, and then using it, maybe translating it, and then giving someone else this information to do something with it, to use it. In this way, you’re an advisor, but information has to go through you before. So you’re a medium in that way. So in my work or in my research in the humanities, of course, we talked about this on a theoretical level, circulation of knowledge, the institutional creation of knowledge or how discourse analysis works. But in the end, everyone in every discipline can do this. So these would be the skills that everyone, I think to a certain degree, already has.

Other things, and those can be learned in continuous education, is the way you talk to people, the way you handle meetings, the way you write precise briefings in a higher education political context. Because no one probably doubts that you can write a 300 to 500 pages dissertation, but that is not necessary here because here it is necessary that you write a one pager where all the necessary information about a certain topic can be found so that someone can make a decision based on the way you present vital information.

And even though our focus today is on careers in academia, but not in research, I think these are skills you just mentioned that can be very helpful also if you want to look at a job outside of university, which is not in research.

Oh, definitely. I think so. This is what is the best qualification about anyone who either studied or did a PhD somewhere, because we are living in a knowledge society, right? So in any kind of way, if you can prove to someone that you’re able to analyze or to move through vast landscapes of knowledge and not get lost there, but to find a certain structure and to work with the structure, and make use of that knowledge in some way or another. That is one of the biggest requirements for any job, I would say, nowadays.

Would you go as far as to recommend doing a doctorate if you know beforehand that you don’t want to stay in research? You already said that you probably wouldn’t have finished your own doctorate if you would have known that your career develops the way it developed. But if people just haven’t started their doctorate yet or are just beginning, and they already feel like, oh, maybe research isn’t really where I want to stay, would you still recommend going on with it or would you say there are other things that are more useful if you want to have a job that is similar to yours?

That is a very difficult question to answer because I don’t think it’s a requirement and I don’t think it should be a hard requirement to have a PhD to be in the position where I am in. Having said that, I think it helps me a lot. And a lot of what I learned during my PhD is helping me every day, because it also guarantees that I have gathered insights into how universities work, into how science and research works. And when you’re talking with academics and you’re trying to support them in research projects, you can always say, I’ve been there, I know what you’re doing, or at least I’ve had a glimpse at what you’re doing. So not trying to overstretch what I did with a PhD. And also, to be honest, it’s a great opportunity to do a PhD. And it’s been a few extremely educating and invigorating years for me. So I wouldn’t want to miss that. But I would not suggest to anyone, if you’re really keen on fulfilling this role as a non-researcher at university, I would ask people to think twice about doing it again. Because maybe that would probably be the wrong way to approach it, I think.

I’m nodding here, you can’t tell, but I definitely agree. Often I think people also want to kind of keep both doors open. Let’s say if someone wants to prepare early for a career beyond research or at least have the opportunity to have good chances to get a job in that field, what would you recommend they focus on during their doctorate?

That’s an extremely good point because if you want to keep both doors open, trying to step into the, I would say, administrative or management side, that is always a good option. That was my first step, to be honest, into the world of science management. I became the academic coordinator of a bi-national PhD program, where I was still a scientific researcher, but I also got the chance to have a first look into how it is to do the administrative work on such a project, how to deal with the money, how to make sure that if people go on a travel, they actually get their money. Stuff like that.

And this is something that is vital knowledge for any researcher, I would also say. Because if you ever want to apply for a big grant, you have to know how these things work. You have to know how to make a budget. You have to know how to write a proposal. And you have to show, if you want to become a professor, that you have acquired third-party funds and know how to handle those. And of course, there will always be members of the administration to support you in that, and that’s their job, and they are there for that.

But still, even if you’re a speaker of a big project or the lead, you should have some fundamental knowledge on how that works. And also, that would be the next thing, maybe if you want to fulfill any political role at the university level, at some point you also have to know how the administration works, because then you will be in direct contact with them all the time in the organizational level, structural and political level of the institution.

If a doctoral researcher is currently unsure whether to stay in academia or leave research, what would you tell them?

Again, a very good question, really depending on the field, because I guess that so many doctoral researchers during their dissertation phase have had hard times. And to a certain degree, I think that’s normal, maybe not healthy, but definitely normal. So I think there is this very problematic phase where we really want to throw everything away and think about just leaving everything behind you. But still, if this becomes a regular thing and if this becomes normal, you should really consider it.

But finishing a PhD probably is never wrong. Staying in a postdoc position, if you’re unsure, too long, that probably can become a problem at some point. So usually in order to answer the question, I would say, really think how hard would it be to finish the PhD? What is the stage that you’re at now?

How much more trouble would it be for you? Because if you have the opportunity, I would probably advise people to still try and finish. Because at least in the German system, even in administration, if you have a PhD, it won’t hurt you. So people won’t look down on you and say, this is the person who didn’t make it in research. But of course, considering the sunk cost fallacy, if it’s too hard, you can give it up. You’re still not a failure.

You just touched on a point that I find very interesting and also important. You said staying in a postdoc position too long might be the bigger problem or might be a problem as to finishing your doctorate, which is giving you usually good opportunities afterwards and it’s not something bad for you. I was wondering, could you define „too long“? How many years, or maybe it’s not even years, would you say you can stay in a postdoc position when you already feel, maybe this is not where I see myself in the long term? In research, I mean.

That’s really not for me to say because I haven’t been there. And this is also really a question about your personal way of life. I just never saw myself in trying to pursue a goal that would lead me into my late forties with all the insecurity that is attached to that. Because I also thought that at some point it would be too late to start another career.

So for me, it was really clear that a decision was due at least at the end of my doctoral phase. But I don’t think I’m in the position to say how long you can be a postdoc and still be on the safe side. That’s probably for everyone on their own to decide. And also, talk to your advisors on a constant way, because they are the ones that have this responsibility for you, of course. But if you don’t have a plan B, it will definitely become a struggle at some point.

I think that’s still very helpful to hear your story and what you thought about when taking the decision. Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you think is important when it comes to careers beyond research at universities?

I think it is important to always keep an open mind about the endless possibilities there are, because it’s not only universities. A lot of people have these very, very high-level academic CVs that read great, but you always have to have a certain look outside academia at some point, which again is a very field distinctive problem, right? Because if you’re from the biochemistry field of research, or if you’re specializing in AI, you can do a PhD as many times as you want. People will definitely be looking for you.

People in the humanities, however, probably should have a more clearer understanding where they could be going anywhere. But the suggestion would be to keep an open mind, be inquisitive about whatever is possible, to mingle with other people, to mingle with other disciplines, but really always take into consideration how many advisors you want for your academic career. And I’m not talking only about professors because they also in the normal way, they have very academic CVs. So I guess you should also find people beyond academia to talk about your academia dreams.

At the end of our interview, I have a few quick questions. Just answer with whatever comes to mind first, one word or a short phrase. Are you ready?

Yes.

One thing you don’t miss about academic research?

The fear of the white paper when I have to start writing a paper.

That’s a good one. One thing you didn’t expect to enjoy in your current role?

Actually preparing briefings for other people.

I thought you might say networking.

Yeah.

What matters more in your job, structure or flexibility?

That is a really good question, but I think I would always go with flexibility.

One task that takes up more of your time than people would expect?

Finding dates for meetings.

One word you would use to describe your current role?

Diplomatic.

And the last question I have for you, the best career advice you’ve ever received?

I think I was once given the advice to find something to do where I would have a good ratio of being in a place where I could be idealistic and work on something that I’m really 100% behind. And I would say that working in any role at a university is always something that is worthwhile and maybe even a privilege. But at the same time see that idealism is not the only driving factor and something that can be used in order to get more out of you than is maybe good for yourself, if that makes any sense.

It definitely does. Thank you so much, Klaus, for your time and for sharing your insights and experiences.

Thank you so much for having me.

OUTRO

That was Dr. Klaus Wiehl talking about his career path beyond research and his current role at Freie Universität Berlin. We talked about different career options within universities, what skills from a doctorate can be transferred to non-research roles, and what it can look like to move from research into a coordinating role. If you’re interested in related topics, you can find more episodes here in the podcast. My name is Dr. Marlies Klamt and this is the DRS Podcast by the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. Thank you for listening and until next time.

[Note: your host for this episode was Dr. Marlies Klamt.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

INTRO

Welcome to the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. My name is Dr. Marlies Klamt and I am moderating today’s episode. In this episode, I am speaking with Indira Chue, who works at the dissertations department, or Hochschulschriftenstelle in German, of the University Library at Freie Universität Berlin. This department plays a key role in the doctoral process, as it is responsible for receiving, checking, and formally confirming the publication of doctoral thesis.

Our topic today is publishing your dissertation. We talk about what publication actually means in the context of the doctoral process, why it is more than a final administrative step, and what doctoral candidates need to be aware of when it comes to timing, formats, formal requirements, and costs. In this interview, we discuss, among other things, how the publication process is embedded in the overall doctoral timeline, which publication options are available at Freie Universität Berlin, which factors play a role when deciding on a publication format, and which common mistakes can lead to delays, and how to avoid them.

INTERVIEW

Without further ado, let’s welcome Indira Chue from the dissertation department of the University Library of Freie Universität Berlin. To start, could you briefly introduce yourself and your role at the FU Berlin University Library?

My name is Indira Chue. I work at the dissertations department at Freie Universität. The dissertations department is located at the central library of the university library of the Freie Universität. And our role is to receive the dissertations of doctoral candidates since in Germany there is an obligation for doctoral candidates to make their theses available to a wider community and we are the place where these dissertations are submitted and we check them. And then if everything is correct according to the standards and to regulations of the departments then we issue the acknowledgement of receipt in digital form and then we send it to the respective examination office of the respective department by email. And then the examination office can issue the doctoral certificate. So, we are quite important for the doctoral candidates. We have an important role in helping them to get their doctoral certificate.

I certainly agree and thank you very much. That gives a clear picture of what the dissertations department is responsible for. To understand how this fits in the doctoral process as a whole, let’s now look at the typical timeline related to the publication of the doctoral thesis. Once the disputation is completed, which steps follow and in what order when it comes to publication, formal confirmation and the issuing of the doctoral certificate?

I have to say that at Freie Universität the situation is quite heterogeneous depending on what department the dissertation was submitted because the regulations are quite different. But in general, one could say after the dissertation the department has to issue the permission to print. Usually, it’s the examination board of the department and this is handled via the examination office, the Promotionsbüro. So, once it is clear that no changes content-wise have to be made and the dissertation is ready for publication, then the candidate should decide in which form the submission should take place, because in most departments there are several options to submit the dissertation.

And then, ideally, they should contact us, the dissertations department. Also, the examination offices have leaflets, which we created with information what the candidate should do. They also get the information that the candidates should contact us before they proceed in the publication process.

Thanks a lot. Yeah, I will definitely talk with you more about the differences between the departments and also the options of submission. But let’s do that later. First, I would say, I think it shows quite clearly what you said, the publication cannot be treated as something to deal with at the very last minute. And that brings us to the question of planning. In order to avoid unpleasant last-minute surprises, what kind of time frame should doctoral candidates realistically plan for once they start preparing the publication of their dissertation?

That depends very much on the case. For instance, if candidates want to publish their book with a publishing house as a book, then they have to plan far ahead with a publishing company. And there are also some important details to be known there. For instance, that the publishing house should print in all of the print run, that it is a dissertation of Freie Universität, there is a symbol D188 that indicates this, but there are also other ways of making that clear. This is one thing. Another thing is that in the copies, in case of a publishing house publication, in the copies which have to be submitted to us, the dissertation title page has to be included, and so on, and so on. And also, we need a written confirmation of the print run of at least 150 copies. So these are, for instance, things that have to be regarded in the case of this kind of publication.

In other cases, if it is an online publication, you have to bear in mind that what you upload on our dissertation server has to be checked by us, and it might be that we tell you to have some formal changes made. And then this takes a while. So, it also depends a lot on how quick the candidate can react to our requirements. But it always has to be kept in mind that there might be things that have to be corrected. And so, it is always a good idea to plan a little further ahead. Yeah, at least a few weeks.

I definitely agree with you. And I think it would be very interesting to explore a bit further what publication options are available. You already mentioned the publishing house, online publications. Could you give us a brief introduction to the publication options available to doctoral candidates at FU Berlin?

Like I said, that differs from department to department, but I can name all the publication forms that are possible, although not all of them are possible in each department. So one option is the printed and bound copies, which means one goes to a copy shop. These copies can be made in any copy shop, but they have to be glued binding, no spiral binding, no ring binding. And the number of copies that have to be submitted also depends on the department.

Then another form is microfiche copies. This is a form of micro reproduction, but not a film, but like cards. That is very often chosen if online submission is not an option due to copyright reasons. So, this is the second option. The third option is submission in a publishing house, publishing house copies. And then the fourth option is the online version. In some departments, it is the only option, actually. And by the way, in all forms of submissions, there are always printed copies involved as well.

So, if you choose the microfiche option, you need three additional printed copies, and in the case of online submission, the number of copies also varies from department to department. So mostly it’s two copies, but for some departments it’s three copies, and for some it’s seven. So, it depends. But these are the several options.

Can you tell us a little bit which factors play a role when deciding on my publication format? Well, we imagine that your department allows all of them. I’m thinking, for example, of cost, prestige, time requirements and similar aspects.

Well, it also depends. I think, in the philological or in the humanities, let’s say in some cases, a book publication is most prestigious, like, for instance, history or history and cultural studies. When it comes to art, history or archaeology, the book publication might be especially prestigious. But online publication is in one respect also very prestigious because the dissemination is very wide and citation. So, this is a very popular option. But then again, some candidates do explicitly not want online submission because they plan to publish their dissertation later on in a publishing house, and many publishing houses will not publish a work that is openly available worldwide. Not all. It is not always a hindrance for online publication, but it is a point that has to be cleared. And so for those, this is often a reason that online submission is not wanted. And like I said, in such cases, very often microfiche option is chosen.

And when it comes to the topic of costs, what do you recommend? Maybe the doctoral candidate doesn’t really care so much about the prestige. Maybe they don’t want to stay in the academic sector and they’re more interested in keeping the costs low. Can you tell us a bit how the costs differ depending on the publication option which is chosen?

In that case I would say the online sales submission is least costly, because basically you only have to print the copies. If you choose a soft cover, adhesive binding, then it’s not so expensive. And if this is not an option, for the reasons that I named before, then microfiche would be probably the next thing. Because microfiche duplication is in most cases less expensive than printed and bound copies.

I know it depends a lot on many factors, for example, the length of the dissertation, everything. But can you give us a rough idea how much we’re looking at with online publications and microfiche as well as also publishing houses? Because I think this is a cost factor many doctoral candidates are not aware of until the very end of their PhD.

Actually, no. I can’t tell you any numbers. When it comes to microfiche, there are actually only two companies that we know of that do microfiche copies, and both of them can be found on the internet, and one of them has a price list where you can enter how many pages does a dissertation have, how many copies do you need, and then it is calculated. So it has calculator on the web page. And the other one does not have such an openly public calculator, but you can write to them and they will tell you how much in your case it will cost. But unfortunately, no I cannot give any numbers.

Okay, that’s a microfiche and I think that’s maybe an option that is less known. So if you want to, you could send me via email the links to the two companies and then we could link them on the website as well so that people know where to look for the costs. And I remember I published my own dissertation in a publishing house. I don’t remember the exact number, but I remember that it was a few thousand euros. So, I think it can vary a lot as well. Obviously, it depends on a lot of things. I had a lot of images, for example, which made it more costly. I also wanted the price of the book not to be too expensive, and then I had to pay more in order to make that happen.

Maybe even just knowing that it could be a few thousand euros might help people. And are there possible options where people can get a scholarship in order to have the costs for the publication via publishing house at least partly covered?

There is, for instance, the Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft (link opens in German), an alumni corporation for ex-FU students. They do that. And I think the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft maybe, but I can only recommend to research about… Or there are many foundations like the foundations of the political parties, Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung, Heinrich Böll-Stiftung, foundations like that. They sometimes do that.

And from the Freie Universität, we also have a publication fund, but that only refers to open access costs if a dissertation is published in a publishing house that does open access e-books that are published under a Creative Commons license and are available open access and they can be funded by our publication method, but only the open access costs, not the printing costs and under certain conditions. One condition is that first it only applies to dissertations that have summa cum laude and also they have to be published on our repository Refubium, which if it is an open access publication is not a problem from the publishing houses side.

So, the good news is that there are options available. The bad news is people will have to do their own research, but I think it’s very valuable to know that you might get your costs at least partly covered. Something we haven’t talked about yet is how the choice of publication is affected by whether the dissertation is a monographic or cumulative dissertation. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

If it’s cumulative, it actually only matters if you want to or have to do it online. In that case, secondary publication rights of the publishing houses where the articles are published or submitted have to be observed, because the publishing house might not agree to their articles being publicly available on an institutional repository. If that is the case, then in most cases there’s the option to remove the article from the online version of the dissertation and replace it by a DOI link. Not only the identifier, the DOI, but it has to be a clickable link. But in the printed version, the articles have to be included. If you choose microfiche option or printed and bound, then it does not matter. Then the articles can be included. So for us, the question cumulative or not cumulative only matters in that respect.

Thank you very much for explaining the different options. I think we all agree that it’s a very complex topic and a lot of things need to be considered when making the decision. I would like to change the topic now a little bit and talk with you about the mistakes that can occur when dissertations are submitted for publication. What are the most common mistakes you see when dissertations are submitted for publication?

One thing is, for instance, if you do electronic dissertation, don’t have the copies printed before you have uploaded your dissertation and have it checked by us. We have to check it and there might always be formal mistakes and we might have to tell you to change something. And the same applies for instance, microfiche or printer-bound copies. It would be best if you could send us your dissertation, a PDF file of your dissertation, so that we can check it.

Most common mistakes concern the dissertation title page. The most common thing is that the date of defense is missing. It has to be either on the dissertation page itself or on the second page. Usually it’s written under the names of the referees. Another mistake is that the specific doctoral degree is not named. It is not sufficient to write for the doctoral degree, but it has to be submitted, blah blah blah, in order to obtain the degree of, for instance, Doktor der Philosophie, short Dr. Phil, or PhD. This, by the way, is also another misunderstanding. Doctor of Philosophy is not the translation of Doktor der Philosophie. These are two different titles.

Doctor of Philosophy is the long form for PhD, and this only applies if you have major dissertation, graduate school, and so usually it’s rather Doktor der Philosophie or Doctor of Natural Sciences, Doctor Rerum Naturarium. Sometimes it’s Dr. rer. pol. but it has to be the specific degree and not just doctoral degree. Then another thing is that sometimes the name of the department is not correct. For instance, the Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy is named like that, and very often candidates write Department of Biology, Pharmacy and Chemistry, and things like that. Or sometimes they only write the institute and not the department. Yes, these are the most common things. We also have specimen title pages and candidates should look at them and use them as an example.

That’s exactly what I wanted to ask you. So the templates for the title pages is something I look for at your website of the FU university library and not on the department’s website, correct?

Exactly. That is very important because the department websites usually refer to the version that candidates submit to the department for the referees. And that is different from what they have to submit to us for publication.

And what happens if you submit a dissertation that actually does not meet the formal requirements?

Well, that is always very annoying. In many cases, we try to correct the mistakes, which means we have to do some corrections, some new printings or something like that to glue the title page over or something like that. But sometimes it can also happen that we cannot accept the copies and that new copies have to be made. Let’s say in the case of online dissertations, the damage is usually not so high, because if the candidates have not printed copies beforehand, which they should not do, as I’ve already pointed out, but if they do it online, then they have to upload the thesis before, and then there’s still time for us to tell them, this has to be changed, you can change the PDF file. And so this can be corrected in time. But in other cases, sometimes we already get the copies and then, yeah, in the worst case, the candidate has to have them made once more.

Let’s imagine someone listening is now unsure about some specific aspects of their own publication. For example, maybe someone asks themselves, which doctorate do I actually make and they’re not sure. Who would they go to, where would they seek out help? Would that be you and your team or would that be the department?

That will be the department, the examination office.

And with what kind of questions are doctoral candidates welcome to contact the dissertations department?

In general, we only come into play after the defense. Questions that are submitted to the department. They can only be answered by the examination office. This is sometimes a misunderstanding, actually, only what happens after the defense. And whenever there are questions that we cannot answer, then we will tell them where to turn, and usually it’s the examination office if we cannot answer a question.

You already mentioned the dissertations department website. Can you explain us a little bit more about such a central resource and how candidates can find relevant information there efficiently?

Publication of a dissertation or the submission of a dissertation is very complex and it cannot be explained in a few words. And also the regulations, the Promotionsordnungen, they cannot handle all the details. So that’s why it’s important to look at our websites. Actually, it’s not only one page, it has several subordinate menu points. And it is important because in this way mistakes can be avoided.

Yeah, and that’s definitely something we all want, to avoid as many mistakes as possible because it can be a real hassle, I guess, for everyone involved if there will be delays due to mistakes.

Exactly.

Is there an important aspect related to publishing the dissertation that we haven’t touched on yet but that you think doctoral candidates should definitely be aware of?

There are always a lot of things to be said. The most important thing is really to look at our websites and to think about that before the publication in whichever way is started. And for electronic dissertations, maybe it’s important to know that if the candidate uploads their thesis on RefuBund, it is not yet published. Some candidates might think that, oh, everything must be okay and before I upload it, no, we will check it in any case, it is in our internal workflow area. We check it. We write, in any case, we write back to the candidate if something has to be changed or if everything is okay. And then we tell them if everything is okay to submit the printed copies. This is maybe something that has to be known and there are a lot of specific things and all the forms of publication.

Indira Chue, thank you so much for this interview. I truly hope that as many doctoral candidates as possible listen to this interview early on in their doctoral journey in order to avoid mistakes later on. Thank you so much.

You’re welcome. It was a pleasure.

OUTRO

That was Indira Chue from the Dissertations Department of the University Library at Freie Universität Berlin. Our conversation shows how central the publication step is within the doctoral process and how much time, planning and attention to detail it actually requires. It also makes clear how important it is to consult the relevant resources early and to clarify formal requirements before starting the publication process. My name is Dr. Marlies Klamt and this was an episode of the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin.

You can find more episodes of the DRS Podcast on topics related to doctoral studies. This episode is part of the Finishing Your Doctorate series, which might be of particular interest to you. Thanks for tuning in and until next time.

[Note: your host for this interview was Dr. Marlies Klamt.]

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Hi.  I’m Michael Love, I’m an associate professor at UNC Chapel Hill in the departments of genetics and biostatistics and I graduated from the IMPRS program in Berlin in computational biology and scientific computing. So I I had three advisors, Martin Vingron and Stefan Haas and Knut Reinert. And then following the PhD I did a post-doc. in Boston with Rafael Irizarry. It was also computational biology bio statistics, and then I transitioned to UNC around six years ago.

Why did you decide to do a doctorate? Take us back to your decision – how did you decide?

So I was I was pursuing a master’s in statistics at Stanford. And there were many different examples of what kind of data could be modeled and I was most interested in the biological datasets so genetic data sets or you know modeling cells and things like this. And I remember I did an internship at UCSF, and there was a postdoc there Owen Solberg who talked to me and gave me some career advice that if I wanted to continue this I probably should pursue a doctorate that if I wanted to you know seriously pursue statistical methods for biological data. I should find a PhD program. 

Why did you choose to do your doctorate at the Freie Universität?

I chose Berlin because in particularly Martin Vingron’s group attracted me because I had seen papers from that group that were right in the area that I was interested in which was developing statistical methods, applying them to new types of data so new data sets that did not have. appropriate – like existing methods that, you know you could just apply. And another thing I noticed was that the methods were being distributed as software. So you know people could go and use those tools. And apply them to their datasets or, and that those, those tools would undergo some development with you know with other groups. So I thought you know that kind of collaborative process of developing, methods and in close contact with the geneticists and the biologists, and when I arrived in Berlin, I noticed I saw, both with Reiner’s group and Martin Vingron’s group, I saw, you know how close the contact was between the biologists and the computer scientists and the statisticians, that’s what I’d been looking for.

When you started your doctorate, what did you plan to do after graduating? Did you have a clear idea of what you wanted to do?

I had an idea of what I wanted to do but I didn’t know where I would do that. So you know, and – I had done an internship and during the internship I’d worked closely with people at UCSFs but also there was a team at Genentech. So I had already seen that in pharma there are highly sophisticated computational teams,  statistical teams that were analyzing the exact same kind of data and in many ways had similar questions, and so I’ve thought I recognize, you know I can do this long-term probably in academia or in industry, but I need to get the PhD so I can open the door to either direction. But in terms of what I wanted to do I think I from the beginning I thought I want to develop these methods and these tools so, I feel like I’m lucky that I so, I feel like I’m lucky that I had that idea and I still get to do that I, I enjoy that I you know I’m still kind of doing a similar thing that I was doing in my PhD which is trying to come up with new methods that people can use to analyze new types of data. And I think the lucky part was that right when I did my PhD there was this explosion of sequencing data sets like DNA sequencing had been optimized during the human genome project. And the cost had gone down. And then, all of  these different types of data like RNA sequencing or chip sequencing had, you know these datasets were just coming online, so it was a very, it was a great time to, you know, be a computational biologist and trying to like make these methods.

When you think back to your experience with your supervisor or supervisors during your doctorate, what went really well for you?

I had kind of three advisors set up. From the beginning where I was both in the informatics, mathematics and informatics at FU with Knut Reiner’s group and also in the. Max Plank at in Dahlem with Stephen Haas and Martin Vingron and I kind of at the very beginning I alternated between those two campuses and tried to figure out like where, where would I be able to make a contribution? And within the first year I realized that, I was probably going to have a you know more significant contribution in the Vingron department, just not you know I got along fantastically with the Reiner group and got a lot I think I got a lot out of sitting in that group for like the first year or so, but then I realized like, the need for statistical methods and the like – the – in particular these, the smaller groups so group leaders like Ho-Ryun Chung and Sebastian [M..] and, and Peter Arndt, there, there were these group leaders within the department who had very interesting questions and often those had a statistical, thrust to them. And so I was, I, what went really well for me was both interacting with my formal advisors but also being able to talk to the group leaders in the Max Plank and kind of hear from, you know, what are the what are the questions – like – Sebastian, what are the questions that he has about transcription factor binding sites or from Ho-Ryun, like, what are the questions with epigenetic regulation that they were pursuing in their group. And how can statistics be used to help answer those questions. So. The fact that it was a, it was a big department, it was very diverse in terms of the, the fields. And there was a lot of kind of, cross-pollination.  So being able to both, you know hear what’s exciting and then So being able to both, you know hear what’s exciting and then hear what’s challenging and what what’s needed to, you know, what, what would be useful to have a tool to do XYZ? Or also like, oftentimes the first like really interesting new experiments producing new types of data, it takes a lot of Iteration between the computational side like pulling up the data starting to visualize it and the experimental side saying like, well oh by the way there are these, you know, technical biases we need to worry about, or, what we’re really looking for is this signal here at this you know place in the genome. So having those teams. You know physically close to each other and so you can interact with each other often is really helpful. It speeds up the development. Whereas if you’re on separate camp- campuses you can still, you know have that conversation but it takes a lot longer to iterate. And so, that was a very productive environment for me. You know, Martin, as the head of the department cultivated that, I think he, you know, he brought these people together. He encouraged them to interact with each other. There were rotating presentations in the weekly meetings. And so, you know you were able to, very quickly like hear about a new type of data offer to look at it and interact with a PhD student from the experimental side. And iterate and then see what we could figure out.  

Is interdisciplinary communication common in your field? Was this something unique about your program?

Yeah, I think that so from my experience the Berlin program managed to do this well. It’s difficult to foster interdisciplinary work because you’re often on the edges of institutions. So institutions, you have departments, and within a department there are recognized types of work that you could do and types of scholarship – and interdisciplinary work, you’re by definition you’re on the edge. And so a lot of universities tried to, you know create interdisciplinary, try to reward interdisciplinary teams or like they, you know, that’s a buzzword that universities and research institutes want to foster but it’s another thing actually accomplishing it. And so yeah, that was really really helpful for me really impactful for me. And I’ve tried to seek that out everywhere I’ve been since. I’ve tried to like, I want to find a place where there’s a lot of crosstalk between, you know, doctors geneticists biologists and the computational side.  That was part of the, IMPRS. So the international Max Plank research school. that is, I think it’s, it’s like it’s housed between the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and Freie. And also has lots of other participating institutions and PI and investigators so that was so that was the degree program that I received my degree from. And it’s kind of, it’s tied to, it’s part of the Bereich mathematics, informatics at FU. So like that was where I had to go to get my diploma, but the program was this IMPRS program.

You’ve been in the US, where programs might be more structured, and in Germany, where it is less common to do coursework – can you tell us a little bit about your experience in both systems?

So I had you know I think I had a strange experience because I, in my master’s in statistics I, you know, I got all this coursework and but then no you know I did I wrote I did a research project, but I didn’t you know have a dissertation out of the masters. And then I transitioned to Berlin where I took some classes but you know predominantly just research just working on you know, research that will lead to first author publications is kind of the main goal. And so there was this hard split, like ocean, in between my coursework and then my research in the PhD. And so you know that, that was I think I, I benefited from that because I had these tools, these, these statistical and mathematical tools for thinking about data. And then it was just like, hit the ground running and start to apply them. There was, a rich, a culture of like keeping up with the, statistical literature or like mathematical literature. So oftentimes in group meetings we would be talking about, you know, papers that had just come out, but the focus was on new methods and kind of assuming that you had a baseline of, you know, statistical methods if you were going to be developing new ones. So we could read this new paper and you knew what they were doing, like what the stochastic model is underlying that. So I thought you know it worked out well for me.  One thing that I, I didn’t experience this in my labs but like something I’ve seen you know, in my travels around the world is that you can end up – in particular people who are focusing on computational work you can end up in labs where you don’t have the theoretical background or mentorship that you need to succeed. Where, because it’s so desirable to have someone who’s capable at, at, data science or writing algorithms you can end up, like getting accepted to a position where you will not get the mentorship you need. And so that’s something to be concerned with. I didn’t, I didn’t experience that, I felt like I always was able to receive whatever mentorship I needed by seeking it out from, you know, various experts around me, but like that’s a, I think a danger of not having like, the ground, you know, not having like everyone should take these courses in order before they begin dissertation work. Not really for me, it was a really good setup I received. I can still remember these, like, soft skills courses from IMPRS and I kind of, those kind of filled in all the, all the gaps that I can think of. Like, I still remember there was a writing soft skills course that I think really influenced the way that I still write manuscripts and the way that I teach students how to write, like write for an international audience and you know, lot lots of like great practical advice like that. About scientific writing. And we were also encouraged to, you know a lot of the students in the lab would, as part of their PhD also like have a short visit at another lab where you could see you know that – that’s not that common. So I was very grateful that I was able to do that. So that was you know, part of my PhD was I visited EMBL in Heidelberg, which was a really productive time in my PhD to kind of see what they were doing. In Wolfgang Huber’s group there.

When you look back on your experience – with your supervisor, with your dissertation – is there anything that you wish had gone differently?

 I could say one thing there which is kind of a universal advice, is that there’s this – there’s this blog post from Floren Markowitz. who was a computational biologist in the UK and he writes about, really you should conceive of your relationship with your advisor as you’re not being managed but you’re kind of also managing them. It’s – it’s absolutely a two way relationship and you cannot, you should not just expect that, you know, they will, that that you’re, it’s not that you’re doing work for them but really they’re, should see them as a resource for you. And it’s a finite resource. Both in time, like you will only have access to this person for the amount of time that you’re in their lab, and also like they’re split among other students and post-docs and so you want to make the most of that finite resource and you know so yeah, thinking critically about how about the engagement that you do have with your advisor as a point of like things you’re managing, you’re managing up or what – you know, you don’t want to make it up or down, you’re managing them as well.  It’s really good, and I send it now to everybody. Okay so one thing that I’ve tried to reproduce is, is pairing up computational or statistical students with the, you know, people that are doing the experiments as much as possible. And like, have it, like also taking the advisors out of the loop. You know if there’s two advisers, say, so that they can, interact and ask questions directly. Because that’s, that’s how that’s how you really figure out what’s going on and all the details. Because a lot of times, you know the advisors might not know all the you know, like day-to-day details about you know datasets and oh you know, this new experiments over here in this so trying to pair up computational with experimental teams. And then, you know just having that interface. Rather than, having the experimental data just be like, especially, there’s a lot of publicly available data, which you can just download but then you really don’t get the important information about like why was this generated? What was the questions being asked? You know what is the positive control here, what’s the, what do we expect to be positive what do we expect to be negative, all that really important metadata about the experiment is not there, but you get that If you have a on-site collaborator.

As a professor, you’re currently supervising PhD students and you’ve supervised students in the past. What’s something that you took with you from your own experience for your students?

So trying to provide a setting where they will, where students will have interactions like across, cross field. And so they can learn to speak a different language. Like learn to understand the language of a biologist or geneticist. And, you know there’s a lot there’s an abundance of publicly available data and it’s very you know of course useful and you can write lots of papers with publicly available data, but like, I think you miss out if you just work exclusively with the public data because you never get to hear those questions that motivated the generation of the data sets. So that’s something I’ve tried to recreate in my lab. So I did not, from my PhD I was I was not certain, graduating from the PhD program that I would, you know, definitely want to stay on in academia. And I remember, like in my post-doc, talking often with leaders of computational teams in pharma. because throughout, from my master’s to my PhD till now I still, I interact a lot with very sophisticated teams that are doing fun innovative research, developing tools and methods in industry and so I never thought that you know this would only be a this kind of like interdisciplinary teams and making new methods and writing papers, going to conferences – I never conceived of that as something that would be only available in academia. I’m happy in my current position, I really like working with students and post-docs and I, when I – when students asked me like, you know what’s the difference I think a major difference is whether you enjoy training. Whether you enjoy you know, taking somebody who’s never seen genomic dataset before and training them to when they, you know, when they defend their dissertation versus you can do similar work in industry with people that are trained from day one. So like that’s kind of for me the major difference. I think. I recognized during my postdoc that it would be possible for me to seek a investigator position, like a professor position. In departments in the US, that, you know, there’s, there are cycles to the academic job market and I was lucky to come in at the right time, if you look at you know, between recessions right? Like there’s a lot of luck involved and so it was a good time. There was a lot of interest in people who had data science skills or, people who were trained in computational biology and genomics. It was just a lot of interest in, in the departments kind of building that out. And so I could tell that it would be an option for me to go on the academic job market, it’s, you know, but it does change year to year. And another thing that kind of, another thing that, that I used as part of my job search was that throughout from PhD to postdoc to to my position now I used a network, which is this open source software project called Bioconductor. So, I started my PhD working for the, working as part of this big collaborative project. I used that to meet people. That’s how I met my postdoc advisor. And then that was also that, that project helped me helped like elevate my work to a level that when I was on the job market people were familiar with the papers that I’d written. I think primarily because I’ve been putting out the software on Bioconductor, which is like a platform for showing off your work. And that’s a specific platform for a specific type of, you know, set of methods. But if you could find that. Like in your field if you can find some international you know, collaborative way to show off your work. Then that’s, you know, that – that can help you like bridge these gaps because then people will already know what you’ve been working on at each step in the process.

How did you know that you wanted to stay in academia? Did you consider a different track, or did you always know that you wanted to stay?

That had been built for me. Right, so like that existed, that network existed. It was started in 2004 or something. I graduated – I was in my PhD 2010 to 2013. So that existed, I could just jump onto that, other people like they might have to create their own network and that’s a lot more work. And like, you know that, it just was, it happened to be the right network for me. It was built top of this language that I had specialized in my master’s program I you know, I was familiar with that programming language. And it was about the data that I was interested in analyzing. So it was just like perfectly built for me to you know, put my work on there and then have it be seen by others, see. You may have to, for the first one, you may have to build the network yourself from scratch and that’s just a ton of work.

From where you are today, what would you tell someone who wants to go into academia? Is there any advice that you would give?

So I think, there you. for your, for your own, like emotional wellbeing it’s really important to recognize that there’s a lot of luck and cyclical nature to academic jobs. And, so departments go through phases. They have capacity to take on new positions and they, at the time will, they’ll conceive of like this is what we need. We need someone who can do this. We need somebody who can do machine learning and look at image data, or we need somebody who can do statistical genetics and look at rare variants you know so it’s, I It’s not always so specific but, but It helps to have those, it helps to have already, done work in those areas and that, and there’s a, there’s an aspect of like luck. If you happen to be, you know, have that in your CV. So one thing that you can do to, you know, to – to plan for that is to try to have some diversity in the papers that go into your dissertation or the chapters of your dissertation. Like the broader you spread yourself the more chance you have that something on there will appeal later on to, to a committee, a search committee. So you know, something here in, in cancer biology and something here in, in gene regulation yeah so that’s kind of specific to my field but, kind of, you know, having a little bit of spread in the chapters of your dissertation will help you like attract a postdoc advisor and then, and then appeal to a search committee later on. But it’s not like, you know there’s a – if you ask people who have positions, like, what did you do? There’s a lot of, ascertainment bias in that. Like, you know they’ll tell you everything that they did, but you’re not hearing from, you know a representative sample – as a statistician I have to bring up the bias problem yeah and then I, you know, I don’t know much about, I can’t I can’t comment much because I didn’t – I never sought out a position in Germany. as a PI. So, yeah, I wouldn’t be able to compare very well.

Our last question – if you could time travel back to the beginning of your doctorate to give yourself advice, what would you say to your past self?

Sure. So the advice I would give to, to myself going back in time is that I think it’s – it’s, you will not appreciate the random interactions you have during your PhD and how those will inform you later on. So, you know go to talks that make no sense to you. Don’t worry about the fact that they make no sense to you. You know, write down the words that people say a bunch and that seemed to be important so you could look them up later. And, you cannot – you can’t plan ahead and understand how small conversations you have at a conference or talks you go to that are totally weird will later on, you know, be highly relevant for your research program and will be like future directions that you take. So there’s an element of, of like spontaneity that you should pursue – just like, pursue your curiosity even if you have no training in that area. Just you know go to those weird talks and sessions. 

[Note: your host for this episode was Amanda Wichert.]

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Hi, my name is Ole and I did my PhD a long time ago. [I] graduated in 2008 in Berlin and shortly afterwards I moved to the UK. I live now in Cambridge, just a little bit north of London and I work now for a biotech and life sciences company called Illumina that specializes in genomic sequencing and I’m working here as a software developer slash bioinformatician. 

Why did you decide to do a doctorate?

I really have to think back a little bit because that’s now quite some time ago, I guess – yeah I felt that a doctorate, it was just a great opportunity to sort of dig a little bit deeper and do some exploration, basically you know not to be sort of like, you know, too constrained by sort of like exams and memorizing stuff for exams but just doing some independent exploratory research. I found that the idea already back then quite fascinating, so I guess that was the reason back then why I decided to do a PhD. 

Was there anyone around you that encouraged you to do a doctorate?

Yeah I do, I do remember that several of my friends were thinking about doing a PhD as well. So I think their sort of like topic was, yeah, definitely you know like something that we talked about. Yeah my advisor back then – I mean – I had an advisor for my undergraduate thesis and this person also ended up being my PhD advisor. I don’t recall right now having a lot of conversations with him about that topic to be honest. It was more sort of like among my friends and peers at university.

Can you tell us a little bit about your doctoral program?

So again this was this was all quite some time ago and I think things have changed since then but back then the Free University had the joint PhD program in bioinformatics and scientific computing with the Max Planck Institute for Genetics and the Konrad Zuse Institute. also in Dahlem, in Berlin, so I was part of this joint PhD program, I think it was called IMPRS for International Max Plank Research School. And it was the so then I think IMPRS for Computational Biology and Scientific Computing, so pretty long and unwieldy name. So it was really like, you know similar to the Graduatiertenkollege as you had a, sort of, before that, sort of like a bit more structure to your PhD with the idea that you’re doing the whole thing as a group of peers that start together and also more or less finish at the same time. And there was some coursework and classes on soft skills that had to be done back then. So that was all 2005 to 2008.

When you think about to your experience with your supervisor or superviors during your doctorate, what went really well for you?

Yeah. Again quite some time ago. but I do have the impression that I liked it. My PhD advisor was also still pretty young yet just sort of like started out at the professor, so a lot of things sort of like similar mindset you know, he was pretty approachable as well. It was not sort of like some Professor sitting far away in an ivory tower sort of like, flying above things, but he was pretty down to earth and very approachable.

When you look back on your experience with your supervisor, is there anything you wish had gone differently?

I think – what would I have changed – so I think the one thing that I remember is I was, I think, sort of like – one of the rules of the Max Planck Research School was that I was supposed to have two advisors. So I had this primary advisor at the Free University and then I was supposed to have another one that’s the Max Planck Institute. And I think what happened is I chose two advisors basically, but then the one that was based at the Max Planck Institute left a couple of months into my PhD because he got another job somewhere else. So I think, I think now looking back maybe I should have maybe sort of spent more time and effort then finding a new secondary mentor but I just, I just left then things as they are and was working only then primarily with this one person, and looking back maybe it would’ve been good to get another point of view and another mentor – just because also that was encouraged by the Max Planck School, but I just yeah, I just didn’t pursue it, and nobody’s sort of like enforced it, so it just sort of like fell by the wayside.

Doing a doctorate involves lots of decisions, which can feel really challenging in the moment – when you look back on those decisions today, what do you comes to mind – what do you think?

I mean, now looking back you know after 14 years it all seems it was all pretty straightforward (laugh). And a pretty linear thing sort of like from start to end but I do remember it was not the case, yeah. I mean I think there were a couple of dead ends there was sort of like a scientific collaboration, like a big project that I was supposed to be involved in but it didn’t yield really any meaningful results. So that was a bit of a dead-end. I managed to find sort of like other things to do and other results to graduate with and to write up a doctoral thesis but it took a little bit of time to get there. So sort of like yeah – but these are the things that, that’s what happens when you’re doing research. It’s never sort of like one straight line – there are often dead ends and where you have to sort of like backtrack and walk back out again and try a different direction. It’s just the way it is I guess. Yeah. I mean I would say sort of like getting stuck it’s just part of the experience and trying to get out of it that’s I think the whole point of doing a doctorate, I guess, you know, you – it’s just not sort of like one straight line from start to end, that that’s what I would say. It’s just sort of like getting stuck occasionally and then making mistakes and then finding a way out again. This is part of the experience. So I would say don’t despair, it’s very common – and I think having a good mentor here is also quite important. Ideally your mentor, your PhD advisor, your Doktorvater in German or Doktormutter would help you in that case and guide you a little bit. I think that’s – that should be the role of the mentor, to lend a helping hand here. But in practice it doesn’t always work like that, because your mentor is too busy, has too many projects and too many PhD students. Yeah, but these things happen – happen quite often. It’s, it’s almost normal, I would say. 

From where you are today, when you look back on your time as a doctoral student, is there anything you would do differently now?

Yeah, I mean I do – I do remember that after – towards the end of the PhD when I was applying for jobs, I applied for a couple of positions and I had some, I had some rejections and some interviews that went well – some jobs that were offered to me, but some rejections as well. And I remember taking these jobs that I didn’t get, these sort of like, interviews that didn’t go so well, quite personal. And was feeling pretty down about it. And nowadays it’s just sort of like, you just shrug it off you know, like 14 years later, you think like okay whatever (laugh). You know, but then I was pretty devastated. So I think I guess, you know, it’s just part of life. You know sometimes, usually these job interviews are more sort of like a statement about the relationship between you and the job, right. It doesn’t say necessarily whether you are good at what you’re doing. It’s more sort of like whether you’re a good fit to what the interviewer’s looking for. And sometimes the interviewer doesn’t even know precisely what they are looking for. So sometimes it’s, to – do they think you are a good fit for what they think that they need (laugh). So they have a lot of like assumptions in there. So, so you’re just operating this, yeah, like nebulous area, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. You know that’s just the life.

What skills did you learn during your doctorate that you were able to take with you?

I would say the top most skill is sort of like a high tolerance towards frustration and (laugh) failed experiments. (laugh) That’s the most important skill that you just sort of like get used to. Stuff, you know, science basically not always going as you expect it to be, and science failing and experiments failing and ideas not working out and projects failing, you know, that that’s just the way it is, and sort of like, developing a high tolerance and sort of like an armor against these adverse events. It’s very very helpful in everything in life and yeah, so, so that’s one thing. Tolerance and, and sort of like, stamina. What else would I say? Yeah and also, I just sort of like the fact that, you know sometimes you need to, you know dig really deep to get things that you need, right. I think that’s also quite useful in the world nowadays – that things are not always like, true or false. Sometimes they can be a little bit of both and you need to dig really deep to get the whole picture. And there’s sometimes not just a yes – no answer, but it can be sometimes, also – it depends, right. So, so that’s sort of like, dealing with that – sort of like, ambiguity is also quite important later in life. 

How did you get from your doctorate to where you are today?

So this was now really something where my mentor, my PhD advisor had a, quite a big impact. So I, towards the end of my PhD I really settled into this idea that I should go and continue an academic career, actually for, for awhile and so – so that was where I had my mind set to. And I was applying for – for postdocs as short, like next step – you sort of like apply for postdoctoral position somewhere. And, and then I applied for, for mainly places abroad in – in the, U- in other countries and in US and so on and so forth. But I had already this sort of like doubt in me, the way that I really wanted to stay in academia in the long-term. I just thought sort of like doing a postdoc was the next you know, next step to take, but I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to stay in academia. And then I think by – my, my mentor came back from conference. And said oh, there was this new company in – near Cambridge, that’s doing really cool things, that they’re really onto something – it’s probably worth checking that out. And then I – I we did have a couple of conversations about what it is like to work with a PhD in, for company and in industry and here it also happened that my advisor had spent some years in industry himself. So he knew kind of like, both sides of both being in academia working at the university or working in industry. And I think, you know, he could so based on his very own – his very own experience, he could tell me sort of like what that is because and what life is like, in a company. And so basically then with all this stuff I felt like okay maybe I should just check that out. Maybe I should just take a look at what in life in industry is like, and I went to this company and it sounded really cool what they were doing and sort of like a new still kind of like a smallish start up back then. And, yeah, and then I interviewed, I got a job offer. And I decided to take it. And then the company really grew a lot. Grew from sort of like a small company to a big corporation – right now we’re now 10,000 employees all over the world. So, it has really been growing a lot, been a big change over the years, and yeah so so well, has been pretty good. And I tried out different things – I worked in different teams on many different projects over the years. I spent some time in – in America. So, so it’s an American company that is based in southern California. So I spent some time in San Diego and came back to the UK. I lead now a small team of software developers and research scientists working on pretty cutting edge stuff. So it’s – it’s good. It’s an interesting job. And it’s a fun place to be in.  

Can you talk about the difference between working in academia and working in industry?

Yeah a little bit more continuity, I guess, I mean I know some people that I went to university with that well were quite lucky in a way. And that went sort of like straight to a long term position in academia you know sort of like Where you, you know, you can really plan ahead a little bit but usually that’s that sort of position are a lot harder to get in academia than in industry, very often sort of like people go through several postdocs with very, you know short time horizons where you just sort of like you get a job for like a year or two, then the money runs out. The research grant is over and then you’re supposed to move on to the next job of moving cities or even countries. So it’s a life. Some – some people don’t mind that, some people enjoy that, but in general it’s sort of like very difficult to plan ahead a little bit or build some sort of like steady circle of friends or even a family. So, yeah, I think these things can happen to you in industry as well that you need to change jobs and that you need to change cities and that sort of stuff. But in general it’s easier to find jobs with a longer-term perspective then it is in academia.

What do you think the biggest difference is between doing research in academia and doing research in industry?

Yeah, yeah. It is different and they have several differences I would say. And it’s just important that people, I guess, that consider this step are aware of that I mean, I sometimes I go to sort of like career events at universities or in graduate programs and people ask exactly that question. So. I think – I think there are several differences but sort of like the ones that are standing out for me is usually in, in, in academia, in academic research. you have your project and this is yours and you own this. And you need to sort of like, get your papers out. And – and get somewhere a tenure-track position or a tenured position, right, to a professorship – that’s sort of like the career path. And in industry these things are usually a lot more complicated, I mean first of all you usually never just own a project on your own and have your corner where you work on your own with nobody else. It’s always expected or almost always expected that you work with other people. You know, maybe sometimes if you’re really like a super duper hyper genius then the company will hire you just to sit on your corner and to do only research and nothing else. But usually you’re always expected to work with other people and get something done with other people. And the company determines what you’re working on. It’s – you can, a good company will ask you and take the wishes of the employees and the preferences into consideration. But, but what exactly you have to do is, is then usually determined by the – by the company. That’s sort of like a difference, but then in academia, I think this idea of free research and doing whatever interests you is also an illusion because you just do what, you know, you can get grant money for. You’re also not picking some research topics that personally you like the most – you just, if you want to be successful, you pick the research topic that you know you can get funding for right? So it’s also like determined by someone else right, what you work on in a way. So those are the differences and yeah, I think in academia there’s all this emphasis on papers and writing papers and publishing research and in industry that’s less important, sort of like, what determines your career progression is usually much less well-defined, you know, it’s sort of like often it helps to be involved with products and help the company to release new products that, you know, bring in a lot of revenue that is always good but there are other ways as well. It it’s not sort of like a single path that leads to success and to career progression. That’s – yeah so many different reasons but that’s I think those are the most – some of the important ones. 

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about doing a doctorate?

Choose your lab and choose your advisor very carefully. Because that’s an important part of your success. And don’t only talk to your advisor talk to the other students in the lab as well. And – and what they experience, because those are your peers and and very often you’re going to spend a lot of time and have a lot of interactions with them. So choosing that sort of environment it’s important just just talking to people and – and you know and making decisions based on that. Yeah, and, of course try to enjoy it. And try to enjoy the experience. That’s what I would say too.

[Note: your host for this episode was Amanda Wichert.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

I’m so excited to be here today with you guys. I’m going to just ask you to briefly introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about who you are and why you’re here with us. I’ll start with you.

Teresa: Hello, I’m Teresa Kolakowski, working as technology transfer officer at Freie Universität Berlin at Profund Innovation. I support industry-university collaborations and help researchers to get in contact with enterprises.

Anna: Hello. I’m Anna Figulushka. I’m Founder Advisor at Profund Innovation, Freie Universität Berlin. I’m there for any student or alumni or PhD candidates who would like to find out if they want to found a startup. They can come up to me and I will try to find a funding program or will try to give them advice on a business model.

That sounds very exciting. I want to just start off with this question: What is Profund and what is transfer? What do you do?

Anna: I can start with the Profund Innovation institution. We are there for the transfer of research ideas into society and economy. And to find interesting and good ideas in the university and outside of the university that may be the right ideas to found a company with. So we support any researcher who comes up to us and finds a connection to our own university, to see whether they can found a startup. We are a team of almost eight people that work in different areas of that topic, either innovation management or transfer management or startup support. We have a huge, nice building in Dahlem, close to the Freie Universität, which has 25 offices for startups and labs where researchers can still try to find the right formula for their idea and where we give them support of different kinds: their workshops or coaching or an office space to work together with their team. That’s what we do.

If you guys could maybe just tell me really briefly: What is transfer?

Teresa: So I would say in general transfer means we have knowledge and technology transfer in the meaning of bringing your research results into society and/or the market. That you don’t just stay in your scientific community, scientific bubble, but that you make your knowledge accessible for other persons, for the public, for people like you and me.
That you can do either in the way of working together with other stakeholders or in the way of founding your own company.

I would love to kind of ask you guys how you got into this and I want to start with you, Teresa. How did you get into the topic of working on transfer and why is this an important topic for you?

Teresa: Thanks for that question. Well, in my master’s degree I studied science and technology studies at Humboldt University, which was about scientific results and what we are doing with them. How to generate them and what does science do for society. After that it was quite clear for me to work at a university, at a place where scientific knowledge is produced, where I can work with scientists, researchers.
So I started working as Grant Advisor at Freie Universität four years ago. There I was responsible for the Department of Veterinary Medicine and the Department of Biology, Pharmacy, and Chemistry, and supported the researchers to apply for funding at the DFG Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft or the BMBF Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung for a European grant. All the stuff you can imagine that researchers have to deal with every day. I really liked that job, but I always asked myself what’s happening after that. So you have this three years project and what’s coming next. What do you do with the results? How to get it into society, into the market.
And then I saw this open position at Profund Innovation and thought: Okay, that’s my chance to change the position and support researchers not only with the grants and the basic research, but to also help them to bring their ideas, their results into the society market and do something with it, to have a use case, have an application. Do not just publish it in journals, but bring a product into the market or in the health sector, to do something good for society and heal infections or anything.

Thanks. It’s very important because in our podcast series we’ve talked to a lot of people about the challenges of the academic job market. I really like to bring this idea that there are many ways to have a career even if you go into research. And I think this is a really interesting option for researchers who are thinking about what do I do after my PhD or after my doctorate. So I’d love to hear from you, Anna, as well. What got you into this topic? What made you want to work on this with students at the university?

Anna: Well, I didn’t study at Freie Universität Berlin, but I studied communication design. And I guess that is something that made me, or influenced me in that way that I always thought I want to work on something new or find something new. That’s what designers do. They find and they organize ideas. Sowhat I did afterwards were many steps. I worked at a pharmaceutical company. I worked for an IT service company and I founded three companies as well. The last one was an app and that’s almost six years ago. Since four years I’m at Profund Innovation and I’m supporting startups. Mainly startups coming from Freie Universität. Well, ideas that evolved from research at Freie Universität, but also any others can draw a connection. That is why I’m here and I’m really happy, that it’s such a creative work. Because on the way the idea may change and I’m always happy when it comes to a complete new perspective and to find a niche in the market.

So when we think about transfer in general and this idea of starting a startup, what do you think you would say if there was a researcher, an early career researcher, who says: I see no connection between what I’m doing right now. I’m in a lab. How do I not have any cool ideas. So how is this relevant for me? What would you tell them to help them to understand to come to you guys, or maybe even that it’s worth having a conversation about transfer?

Teresa: Actually, it’s always good having a conversation because we have innovation scouts in our team. They help you to identify the innovation potential and use cases or applications that you might not have in mind because you’re thinking only of your lab or the researchers in your field. Our innovation managers will be happy to invite you for a coffee here, have a conversation, ask you if have you ever imagined that someone from another field could be interested in your results, because maybe it helps them to improve their ideas. And then, yes, sometimes you get new inputs. For instance, we had one researcher from the department of earth science working with dust in the atmosphere. And she always thought: Well, I’m doing basic research and there isn’t any application for that. But with the help of our innovation manager, we identified photovoltaic is quite interesting because the technique doesn’t work if dust is on the PVC. So that’s a use case she never thought of before. And now we think of working together with a company or bringing up a project together.

That’s a fantastic example. I would love to hear if there are any other examples that you guys can think of where people came to you and maybe really had a hard time imagining this connection between startups or developing a cool idea outside of research. And they were able to come out with maybe not even a startup idea, but just a new idea, a benefit to them talking to you guys.

Anna: Yes, I can think of another idea. There was one PhD candidate. She was at the Department of Linguistics at Freie Universität, at the Department of Romanian Philology. She was working on parts of words and found out that the pronunciation in Vietnamese is so very difficult, so different to other languages and it’s so difficult for Vietnamese to learn German. And she developed a way how to teach Vietnamese people to learn German. And then she met her later co-founder. He was a data scientist and he said, „Oh, it’s possible to train an AI on how to learn German and make Vietnamese people learn German quicker.“ And so they worked together and now found a company called Silbi. And they’re training their AI model successfully and now found investors to invest in the company. That’s another example. And, of course, we know many more because there are coming a lot of ideas into our office.

Very cool. Say, I am really new to this idea about coming up with an idea, and I’m not really sure, about how this might work. What process would I go through if I come to you? What might that look like to develop an idea into something long term?

Anna: As Teresa already mentioned, first it is maybe a coffee with the innovation managers on like: Hey, I’m working on a project at the lab or wherever in the university. Then the innovation manager would say: Hey, I’ve got a connection to an existing company, or why don’t you work in the area of renewable energies, for instance? And then, someone would come to me and we could already work on a business case, on a business model. We normally use the business model canvas, which is a training or model to easily evaluate whether your idea does fit into a market. You will find out whether there’s a target group. You will find out what stakeholders are there, which interest groups, and who would pay for the product in the end. What else needs to be done? Does it need development? Maybe a data scientist works on the development of the product or does it need a lab, or is it hardware which you need to be connected to any company in our network? We provide you with all kinds of contacts. We kind of give you homework and meet up again and again until we think: Alright, now it’s a good point to find the matching funding program. And there are quite a few different ones. There are different ones for the transfer part than for the startup part. For instance, for startup ideas there’s the Berlin Startup Stipendium. It’s a program that is for early-stage ideas. When you’ve already found: Yes, there’s the market for my idea. And you know already: Okay, I need to work on a prototype to test it in the market., then the Berlin Startup Stipendium is a really good thing. You get a grant, a stipend for up to four team members for half a year or even for 12 months. That’s around 2,300 euros. You get workshops and a lot of support from us and you get connected to our big ecosystem, which I haven’t mentioned yet. We call it Science and Startup. It’s the ecosystem of all three Berlin universities in cooperation with Charité. And we at Freie Universität Berlin have the healthcare and prevention startups in our cluster. There are two other clusters, which are technologies and materials. That’s of course connected to Technical University. And sustainability and society is connected to Humboldt University. And in cooperation with Charité we do the healthcare part. And then there’s another funding program. It’s called EXIST. There is the EXIST Founders Business Grant, which is a stipend for 12 months, which supports teams for up to three team members with a stipend of up to 3,000 euros for PhDs and material money of 30,000 euros and coaching money of 5,000 euros. And during the projects the teams are always in our house and our startup Villa and/or in other houses of other university and incubators, depending on where they apply. They have an office in the house and get access to all kinds of lab spaces and conference rooms. They get connected with mentors, coaches, and experts.

So it sounds like a lot of possibilities for people who are thinking about this. Do I need business knowledge? Like, do I have to be someone who really feels like an entrepreneur or is it possible to do this if I feel like that I’m not really sure how businessy I am. Or maybe I have one foot still in research and I’m kind of thinking about it.

Anna: Well, I’ve met quite a few researchers who started a business without having done business before. So it’s good if you are driven. I mean, if you’ve got the energy to do it. Because doing or starting a startup is kind of starting anew, like new studies at university. It’s like a whole new thing. And you need to have some energy, but best case is that you wear all hats: You’re the idea giver and you’re the business guy and you know marketing and sales. But that’s not very often the case. More often it is that you find other team members who are experienced in business or sales or marketing and we help find additional team members. It’s possible to post a job offer at the university or at our network and it’s mostly possible to find a person that fits into the team.

It sounds like you really don’t have to be the business person if you want to try this out. And it sounds like you’d be able to test it out a little bit, get to know you guys and you don’t have to decide right away that you want to do a whole startup. So I have a second question. And that would be. Imagine that I get involved and I start developing an idea. Maybe I go all the way through this startup founding or come up with this business idea, but it’s not successful. What benefit do I have as a researcher for trying this out? And maybe I tried out during my PhD or during my early postdoc phase. What is the benefit of it? If I don’t succeed, what do I get out of that?

Anna: Well, in my opinion, it is really like another education that you went through. And like you’ve had an upgrade on your education. That’s an experience that you will always need because you’ve been able to build up a network that you will probably keep for a long time and you will always be able to get back to people you met during starting up a business. And of course, if it didn’t work, maybe you will try again. Because that’s what a lot of people do. They fail once and try it again and do it better the next time. So that is, I think, what you get out of it.

Teresa: I wanted to add, that if you’re more into the transfer perspective from industry-university collaboration then founding your own startup, I guess that it’s quite similar. You get a new network because you will work with the company, you get to know people there, get new insights, also see what kind of jobs are available. Like who’s working in this company? Could I imagine myself working there? So having first contact with them. We also support you going to fairs and present your idea. For instance, we are having your prototype at this fair and then you could also meet new interesting people. Or you go to any network events we organize. For instance, we have Industry on Campus with a focus on green chemistry, where students and researchers from Berlin or any other place are able to meet startups, companies that engage in green chemistry. Just talk to them, get new ideas, new input, and learn something.

Excellent. So it sounds like there’s a possibility not just to start a company, but also to sort of talk to companies that exist to find out a little bit about how I can bring my idea into existing structures? Did I understand that correctly?

Teresa: Exactly. So there are funding programs supporting the cooperation between small and medium enterprises in Germany with universities or research institutions in general. And we’re happy to support those projects. Also, if you don’t know any company working in your field, you can tell us your idea and then we are happy to have a look if we know anyone who’s working in this field. We bring you together, have a meeting and maybe a project arises and then we apply for this funding.

Excellent. So maybe that’s also another option for listeners who are kind of interested in this startup idea, but they’re not really sure if they see themselves starting a whole company. Where they can find out a little bit more about what’s going on in the industry. If they’re not so sure how that might work, or maybe they want to bring an idea.
So you guys also do a couple of other things. You have a lot of services that you already mentioned. Is there anything else that you haven’t talked about that you think that I should know about, if I were doing a PhD at the Freie Universität and I was thinking about transfer in general?

Teresa: We also organize a lot of competitions. For instance, the Research to Market Challenge, where you can submit a short concept note presenting your idea and then, if you are selected, you will get through some workshops, get this knowledge Anna mentioned before, some canvas business model or a pitch training and you will have the chance to develop your idea further with the help of trainers and the help of our grant advisors. Or another competition is Forum Junge Spitzenforschung, which will open a new call this autumn and the topic will be sensors and data generated by them. There you could also hand in your recent research and hope to get funding and workshops with the trainers.

It sounds like there are a lot of opportunities, but it also sounds like something where you could get really important skills, even if you don’t kind of go in this direction, even if you stay in academia. Because pitching your project and being able to get people excited about it, is something that you need to know across the board. So that sounds very cool. So what is the benefit of working with you guys versus just doing this by myself?

Anna: We’ve been in this area since 2006. Profund Innovation and the call to do transfer at university exists since 2006. So there is some experience . And we do see a lot of projects and ideas. So I think we are really a good address to go to as well as the other transfer and startup teams at other universities. So you should really just write us or call us and talk to us if you plan on developing your idea further, or if you just want to find out if this idea is eligible for any funding program. And I wanted to add a service that we offer, or at least a colleague of ours offers. Whenever researchers start, he or she should come up to us, or to our colleague. She does IP management and patent management. So if there’s any issue about where you could find out whether your idea is able to file a patent for or if you want to find out how to protect your IP, you should definitely go to our colleague Dr. Christine Reuter.

Could you tell us a little bit about this IP process and patent process? Like what is important and what are some of the concerns that researchers have when they’re thinking about this process, what might be some of the questions?

Teresa: The biggest concern is „I will lose time“, because a patent isn’t published in a journal, as PhD students or researchers are used to, but there is a different process. So most of the people say, „No, I want to publish it because I want to submit my PhD soon. I want to have the certificate.“, and there we would recommend before publishing, to come to our colleague, Christine to talk to her about your research results. And also the patent process can be quite fast. So after you have talked to her and both of you decided you have a good result, you have something that is worth to go for a patent, then you can submit together with the other persons who were involved in the process of getting this research results, an invention disclosure. After that, Christine and her team will do some research like: Are there other patents in this field? If so, what content do they have? Is your content new enough or different enough to be a new patent? Is there an inventive step in your research results? She always says, research results can be patented if the guy in the lab next door would have never expected this result. If you go to him or her, tell him or her your ideas and he’s like, „Oh, wow. That’s totally new. I would have thought if I put A and B together, it’s C and now you say it’s D. So amazing.“ That’s worth going for a patent. So you submit this invention disclosure to Christine and her team. And after that, they do some research, have talks with our lawyer, the patent lawyer. And after that we will confirm or not confirm to take it. And after that it’s published, I think, 12 months later. But having in mind that also reviews at journals take quite a while. At least in life science I know stories where a paper took two years to be published. So compared to that it’s quite fast. Not slower than a paper, let’s say it this way. And for your track record, a patent counts as a publication. So that’s sometimes important as well.

So if I publish something as a patent, one benefit of doing the patent is that I have a publication basically. What is the other benefit of getting a patent? Like, why do I want one? Why is it important?

Teresa: For most funding agencies, the probability of funding is higher if you have a patent. At least for the funding programs we support at Profund Innovation, which deal with transferring knowledge into industry. There it’s a plus point if you can show I have a patent on that.

I would love to hear from you guys if there are any examples you can share with us. We love all examples, but I would love to hear if there are examples that have a connection to the social sciences, to the humanities, because I think that’s a little bit harder sometimes for people to imagine, you know, how do I fit in here? I think it’s a little easier for life sciences. And I know you guys are specializing in the life science and the health, as you mentioned. But if you have any, and when you’ve heard about it, I would just think it’d be really interesting for our listeners to hear about.

Anna: Yes, we all love to see more ideas evolving from the social sciences. And we are waiting for it patiently, but there are examples at least. Quite a few that are from the Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences at Freie Universität. One, for example, is an app called Aumio, which is the meditation app for kids with ADHD. The founder studied psychology at Freie Universität Berlin and he was an ADHD patient himself when he was a child. And his parents were like: Oh yeah, we don’t make a big topic out of it. Just wait and see until it gets better and so on. But one day he discovered that meditation helped him a lot. So when studying psychology, he did his master thesis about that topic and did quite a few surveys and started to study on that and found out it really, really helps. So, he built up the startup idea and found team members in the business area and design. And designed this beautiful app with meditation, adventurous trips for kids. And came up with funding and made it to the health insurance company. All the big ones from Germany. That’s a well going startup right now. And there’s another idea that evolved also from the psychology department, which is an awesome app for chemotherapy. Normally, when they receive chemotherapy, they have kind of a chain of little beads and they can say: Okay,now I’ve gained another bead and I have chemotherapy one, then there’s the other therapy and I get another bead and so on. They developed an app for that because, of course, kids today find it way cooler to have a digital tool to see their progress. Developing that app, the idea giver did not only study psychology at Freie Universität but she was a nurse before. A children’s nurse at Charité. And she could also find out that of course parents were really kind of feeling helpless, supporting their kids. And then she also developed an app for parents and caregivers. So she made up a lot of content to help caregivers deal with this situation.

That’s a great example of a connection to the social sciences, because I can think of a lot of ideas where people are talking about research, where they’re dealing with, you know, what do people, how do people behave, or what do they do, or what do they need? And I also really like that idea of connecting to a prior career path, because I think it’s easy for a lot of people to think: I’ve done all these different things. How do I put those two things together?

Teresa: Maybe I can add something to that question because it’s not only us hoping for new projects or more projects in the field of social science and humanities, but also the politics are going that way. The Federal Ministry for Research and Education will publish a call for social innovations in October, November. And we will be happy to have some info sessions on that as soon as it is published. I hope to have a lot of applications from Freie Universität.

I have one more question for you, and that is: What have I not asked you that you think that I should ask you? And maybe there’s some questions that people come to you guys with and you really feel like that’s a question that you would love for everyone to have the answer to, because it gets asked so often. Or maybe there’s a question or information that you would love to share. And I’ll ask both of you.

Anna: Yeah, maybe people come up and wonder when is the best time to approach us. It’s always a question. I think we all would say: Whenever you feel like it. Whenever you think you’ve found something that is possibly a good startup idea or that could be interesting for industry partners, just give us a call.

Teresa: And maybe it’s not only the question, „When should I come to you?“, but also, „Why should I come to you?“ And there, I guess, everyone who is in science or who’s doing his or her PhD right now, is in science because he or she wants to have an impact. They want to invent something or find out some new things and make the world a better place. I know that’s a quite often used phrase. But if you want to have an impact, society and the market need to know about your results. They have to get out of the drawer next to your desk and come to the public. And so we will support you with that. Either in the way of bringing you together with companies or to support you to found your own company.

So I just want to thank you guys so much for talking to us today. We’re recording this interview in the fall, but it’s possible that it might not be published for a little while.

OUTRO

So for our listeners, you will be able to find information about what is coming up by visiting the links, which we’ll also provide, to the Profund Innovation website. Or by getting in touch with the team at Profund Innovation. Thank you so much.

[Note: your host for this episode was Amanda Wichert.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

Intro

Hello and a warm welcome to the DRS podcast brought to you by the Dahlem research school. I’m your host, Dr. Marlies Klamt and today’s episode is extra special because I’m joined by someone you probably already know: Amanda Wichert. Amanda is not only a fellow host of this podcast but also an expert in cross-cultural carriers. And guess what? We here to talk about cracking the German job market as an international doctoral student. In this episode, we’re not just unraveling the mysteries of job applications in Germany. We are arming you with tools, with strategies for planning your career, no matter where you’re from. Here’s a sneak peek of what’s on the menu for today. Get ready for Amanda`s insights into the German job market covering aspects you might not even have thought about. We are diving deep into the skills and experiences you need while Amanda offers guidance and strategies for those who lack them. Or who think they might lack them, because sometimes that’s not even the case, you just don’t know yet. Ever wondered if German is a must when applying for a job in Germany. Stick around to find out Amanda’s take on whether a positive answer to the question „Sprechen Sie Deutsch?“ is a must. One of the wonderful long words we have in German is „Wissenschaftszeitvertraggesetz.“ Yep. This is really only one word and it refers to a law that for many doctoral students is very relevant. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t worry. Amanda sheds light on it. Another aspect we talked about is whether or not it makes sense to do a postdoc after finishing your doctorate. Buckle up for this enlightening interview, we’re here to fill your ears with lots of information and with lots of practical tips. Enjoy the interview with Amanda Wichert.

Interview

I’m very excited to have you as a guest in our podcast today with this episode that is especially addressed at international doctoral students who are wondering how to get into the German job market.
Amanda, I have lots of questions prepared for you, but before we get started, please let our listeners know who you are and what’s your profession.

If you’ve been listening to our podcast, you maybe heard my voice before because I am the other podcast host. But when I’m not doing this Dahlem Research School podcast, I offer trainings and coachings on a couple different topics.
You know organizing yourself, well-being at work. But my main topic is cross-cultural careers, so trying to figure out how to successfully launch your career in a new and international setting. And I work quite a lot with doctoral students and postdocs on this topic here at the university.

That sounds very interesting and that makes you a real expert for our topic today. I know that many of our podcast listeners come from all over the world and every job market has its own rules and particularities. What would you say is special about the German job market, how is it different from the international job market?

So one of the things that I think is really surprising to people that come to Germany, and I know it was really surprising for me when I first came here because I came from the US in 2008 and I thought, well, I can just keep doing the thing that I was doing before, and I was really surprised learn that that’s not really how Germany works.
So Germany still has a very structured job market and it’s a really specific job market and what I mean by that is that most people, not everybody, but most people in Germany do the thing that they studied. So there’s still a lot of connection between whatever it is that you’ve studied and whatever it is you’re gonna do.
And more so than in other job markets, there’s not as much flexibility, so people don’t usually change their careers as much. And this is really changing. So with the startups and with just the globalization of the job market, I think that in, maybe even in like five to 10 years, we’ll see a huge difference here in Germany.
But we’re still at a place where people are really looking at what did you study and what did you do before and how is that connected to what you do next as opposed to sort of what success have you had, which is sort of what we’re looking at in the US or, or are you well-rounded or you know, are you enthusiastic?
It’s much more about how does your profile actually fit the job you’re looking at.

I can imagine that that also has some effects on the job application process itself. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the job application process in Germany, and if there are any specific requirements or expectations that have to do with what you just explained to us, that might not be very common to everybody.

So one of the big things that German companies still want that’s actually really surprising to non Germans to international applicants is this photo, right? And I think the photo is sort of maybe, you know, not a huge element, but it’s kind of a thing that is a, a big symbol for me of the difference between what is expected in the international market and what’s expected in Germany.
So if you’re a German and you’re applying at a German company and you know, you’re looking at a very traditional German employer. You will almost always be expected to include a photo. And when I talk to German hiring managers or German employers and I say, you know, what is the photo for?
And they’re like, oh, I just wanna see like, what do you look like? Are you friendly? Are you „sympathisch“ as this word in German that they’re looking at. And most international employers in Germany don’t really want that photo. And I think again, it’s one of those things that’s changing. But, but there’s that and, and there’s also sort of this traditional German CV structure, which is not quite the same as the CV structure you have in the rest of the world. So in Germany, there’s not traditionally a profile or like a, a pitch at the top of your CV. Usually you just jump right in and it’s facts only, right? Like, so what did you do and where did you study?
And not so much this sort of How do we say it’s very optimistically phrased description of your skills or like a summary of your accomplishments. It’s much more about the facts. What did you do and how does that relate to the thing that you’re applying to?

That’s a great bridge to my next question.
You already talked a bit about the CV structure, that it’s different. About the photo, which is still quite common to include, but would you say that there are also some specific qualification or maybe skill sets that German employers value, especially when hiring PhD graduates?

When you talk to employers about PhD holders in Germany, so people with a doctorate and you say, what do you see? Right. The thing that they’re usually looking at is well first of all, they see you as an expert, in your field. You have, you know, cutting edge experience and information.
What they’re also a little bit worried about is sort of this we can say in English, this ivory tower you know, theoretical approach. And they are really looking to see, have you used your skills or your experience in a hands-on setting. So insofar as the job that you’re applying for isn’t extremely theoretical, and of course there are jobs in the industrial job market that are just theoretical, but even there, they’re looking for, you know, do you know how to do these things in a setting where it’s all about the application and not about just pure science, right? That’s the one thing.
The other thing they’re looking for is your interpersonal skills, your soft skills, and that might seem like, okay, well I’m an expert are these that important? They wanna see like, what did you do, where did you work with people so that they can feel more comfortable about your ability to integrate into this non-academic job setting, because the values are really different. And that’s one of the biggest things that we see when you work with people with a PhD in the industrial job market, is that they say, oh, these are the values of my employers.
They might be really, really different than the values that are central to academia. And so that would be what they’re most likely looking for. And then the other thing would be to look and see: What is it that I wanna do and what do most employers expect me to do in this type of role?
And something I would recommend is just go out and look at four or five job postings for the same position. It doesn’t matter what organization. That could be any organization ideally, like somewhat close to the organization that you’re looking at, but you know, a couple of job postings and look and see what are the key skills that they want for this role that’ll help you get to get a better idea of what really matters.

That sounds like a really, really helpful strategy. I wanna quickly jump back to the first thing you just said that employers expect you to have some hands-on experience as well, some practical experience because I can feel like a lot of our listeners now kind of shivering and saying, oh, but I don’t have it.
I don’t, I don’t have any hands-on experience outside of university at least. So what can you actually do if that’s your situation and you’ve done your doctorate you can call yourself PhD, but you actually lacking still that practical job experience. How can you land your first job?

I’m gonna kind of start off by saying you have hands-on experience. So I’ve never worked with anyone who has zero hands-on experience. You all have so much experience and what we tend to underestimate is, all of the work that you’ve done in your PhD, in your master’s, even in your bachelor’s, you have worked with other people to do things.
So that is hands-on. So where you’ve collaborated with people. Even if you’re, you know, saying, I’m just doing research maybe I’m in the social sciences or the humanities, and I’m maybe even just looking at text and I’m analyzing it. And you say, okay, I can’t really find the hands-on. The hands-on is when you work with other people. In that moment, you are using those skills that you’ll need to do your job later, and then all the other stuff that you’re doing at the university. So when you get involved in let’s say running a colloquium or giving talks or getting together with other students to solve problems in your department.
So you have just this example, it doesn not have to be at a company. It doesn’t have to be in an organization. It doesn’t have to be like a formal hands-on you know work experience because you already have that and it’s just looking for tasks and other kind of things that you can add to what you’re doing right now.
Or you think maybe I need a little bit more practice, then look for something that you can do in volunteering. Volunteering is a really easy way to do this. Get involved in like a student led startup. There’s a lot of them in Berlin. And just, you know, see, can I do this one thing?
Cause I want to try it out and see if I can do it on my own. And that is I think one of the best ways. Internships. You cannot do them in Germany as a student. So this surprises a lot of international PhD students. But if you are a PhD student in Germany, there is no legal or like regulatory framework for you to do an internship.
So you’d have to leave Germany and I actually don’t always recommend that unless there’s something that you really, really, really wanna do and you’re like, I know exactly what it is, and I found somebody that does it, I don’t know, in the UK or in Sweden, and you’re like, I’m gonna go over there and do it for a little bit.
That’s something you could do. But I wouldn’t call it an internship necessarily. I would maybe just think of it as like a, a collaboration or like a, you know, some kind of short work experience.

So what I hear you say, it’s mostly about selling yourself better.
So you actually mostly have the experience, you have the skills, you just have to sell yourself in a way and make people believe that you actually do have them. And then also that if you’re still lacking experience, especially when you’re still doing your PhD, when you’re still a doctoral student and you’re not done yet, that you already think about strategically, what do I wanna do in the future? Do I still lack skills for the jobs I wanna apply to? And then try to get those skills, those experiences, by doing internships outside of Germany, doing some volunteering work or some other work experience you can get hold of.

Yeah, exactly. PhD students focus a lot on, like, I don’t have a job, I don’t have any work experience.
Anything that you are doing in your life is, is experience and it’s just that you need to be able to connect the thing that you that you want to do to something that you’ve done.
That might be a paper that you wrote internationally with different people, and you had to kind of coordinate maybe as a junior researcher on the project you were responsible for kind of getting everybody to answer, right.
And so you might have been the one that wrote those emails to get everybody to answer, got on the phone and called people. And so using that as an example of your ability to reach out and talk to people or, you know, maybe you got involved in a volunteer project where there were a lot of actors involved and you have experience connecting them.
And it doesn’t have to be work, it doesn’t have to be an official job. It can be anything that is remotely related to your professional experience. So, you know, student stuff, all of that is really valid.

I really appreciate your optimistic perspective on that, that you actually just have to look at what you already have. And most of it will be there already.
Now I wanna shift the topic a little bit. I know you don’t have a PhD, but you are a foreigner. You have come to Germany a long time ago, and you have successfully established yourself in the German job market. Would you mind sharing your story with us and let us know how you did it?

Yeah, so what I think was really important, this is the thing I always tell everybody, is it is about getting to know people along the way. So that I think is one of the most important things about the story. But when I came here, I was teaching high school in the US and university, and I did curriculum development for the us for the school system I was working in and I came to Germany and I thought, first of all, I’m just gonna take a year. That was my idea. I was gonna take a year kind of as a sabbatical because I was at a really stressful school. Although I really enjoyed, enjoyed my work, but I needed kind of a break. And I came to Berlin and I thought, well, you know, in about a year I’ll go back.
And I just sort of looked around at the time and this is not something that I would recommend that people do, and it’s actually, I would say kind of, it worked out well for me, but it’s something that my clients that I work with in coaching that it can often, you can get stuck, but I just looked and said, what can I do?
Who will hire me? Right? And I ended up doing consulting for a kindergarten company, a company that owned a couple kindergartens, and I would help them to work with the English speaking staff. So I did staff training and I did a little bit of educational consulting. And I also taught English what I was doing in the US and through those things that I was doing I met people who who I ended up working with later.
I met one of the partners who used to be part of my company now when we founded a couple years ago, she’s not with us anymore, but she was involved in the kindergarten. Her child went to one of the kindergartens that I was consulting for. And so I got to know her and she was like, oh, you know, I really wanna work in this intercultural field and you’re an intercultural specialist.
Why don’t we do something together as a project? And I also worked in IT for a little while and it was the same thing I was teaching, I was doing communication coaching, and I was working with the CEO of a company and I ended up just saying, you know, hey, I think I could work in IT.
And I talked to ‚em about it and I ended up working for their company doing consulting in IT for a little while. And I think it’s all about you know, I would not recommend just taking any job because that often doesn’t work in Germany. A lot of foreigners come in with this idea that like any job is good because you’ll be able to convince someone that you’re great and then you’ll move up. And that’s not the case. And especially for people with PhDs, that can be really dangerous. I mean, I guess today is a big word, but I would be very cautious to do that because what can happen is you end up in a job that doesn’t fit your profile and in Germany particularly, people will look at you and say, why did you end up there? What did you do? You know what happened that you are at this job that doesn’t match your profile.
And so I wouldn’t necessarily do that, but I would really look at like, who do you know and who are you talking to? And try things that talk to people and say, you know, hey, I’m interested in this. Because the more that you tell people about what you’re doing and what you’re interested in, the more likely you are to meet somebody and come into contact with somebody who’s interested in working with you.

I can imagine that. Yeah. Now, you already spoke German when you came to Germany. How important would you say for someone just finishing their doctorate is it to actually speak German if you are looking for a job in the German job market?

So first of all, there are a lot of jobs in Berlin, especially in this tech sector that are in English and in the science sector. So you can work in English. However, there are two kind of aspects. So one is you will be limited to the work that involves people who speak English. So, where you start running into problems will be in situations where there are colleagues or clients who don’t feel comfortable in English.
And this is quite interesting. In Germany there’s a lot of people who don’t speak English that well, and Germans tend to have a pretty strong connection between language competency and this kind of skill level. Germans don’t feel as comfortable speaking English if they think they’re not gonna be really, really good at it. And a lot of people will say, I can do it, but I feel like I am way more of an expert in German and Germany is an expert culture.
And so that’s an issue if you have like a client facing job and then anywhere where you have to interact at your company with departments of the company that are staffed by people with less likely high English skills.
So that might be like, if you’re working with bookkeeping or anywhere there’s a lot of regulations or all that stuff, that’s all still in German.

I guess your recommendation would really be to get some German under your hood and probably just start learning German while you’re still doing your doctorate.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s gonna make it easier. You can get by without it if you really work hard. And I always say everything is possible, some things are just like a lot more work and the less German you speak the harder it will be unless you are very technical. So if you’re like, you know, a data scientist or you know, there’s some other fields you can usually get by with without it, but it’s gonna be harder. And then Germans tend to speak German with them.
You know, when they’re alone and you leave them alone, you leave the room, you come back and they’re speaking German. So it’s just easier for you if you learn German

And also for your social life, I guess, not just speaking professionally, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so much easier. I mean I would say, if you don’t speak German, there are two Berlins.
There’s the Berlin that is, you know, I would say the deep Berlin that’s in German. There’s all this stuff going on that you’re just not aware of, and it’s not, it’s completely different. It’s like a completely different city. And if you are only doing things in English, then you are in this international community, which is also great, but it’s, it’s not like as deep.
And you’ll also find that you will have a bigger network. And it’s just a lot easier to meet people and to get problems solved. It’s a lot easier to get things done and you’re never reliant on other people which is sort of a, a part of being international, we say it’s a lot higher stress.
If you don’t speak the language the stress level will be higher that you have to deal with over time.

It’s worth the stress I have to learn German actually for what I’m getting out of it when I start speaking the language.
Are there departments at the university that actually help me setting me up in the best way possible for the job market, including learning German, but also that maybe help me at university and beyond that help me when I’m looking for a job in Germany that can support me.

There’s a career service department at the Freie Universität, and you are allowed to go there as a doctoral student, and they have info sessions and you can contact them. You can also we have a couple workshops in the Lounjee that you can see that we do and we’re probably gonna repeat them.
You can get in touch with the Dahlem Research School directly if you have like questions and you’re not sure who to talk to. And in the BUA there’s a lot of career workshops. The different BUA universities have different resources and some of them have a little bit more career options.
So there’s that. And otherwise what I really recommend if you’re stuck is to, you know, go look at all those workshops, see if there’s one out there that fits you at any of the Berlin universities. Email, the Dahlem Research School and then talk to people in your department because a lot of the departments they do specific things to support your career development. So if you and your cohort, maybe your colleagues in your department need resources, you can always reach out to the Dahlem Research School as a department and say, look, we would really like this support and the Dahlem Research School can recommend trainers or coaches that you can work with.
And that is also a, a really good strategy if you can’t find something that works for you. And finally I do recommend taking a look at the different resources. We’re gonna put some from the website here. We have an interview we did with a welcome office that’s more for people who already work in the university and, and that can be quite helpful as well.

Thanks a lot for that, Amanda. We will also link the resources you just mentioned on the website about this episode, so that you don’t have to look for them yourself. You’re gonna find the workshops Amanda just mentioned and also the career service and all that on the website and you don’t have to look for the links yourself.
There are two topics I still wanna mention before we come to an end of this interview. One is, it sounds a little bit complicated. Like if I imagine I would be a foreigner to actually enter the German job market, I need to, to learn German, I need to get used to all the different approaches that Germans have.
So it might seem easier to say, I’m just gonna stay at university. You know, why don’t I just do a postdoc so I don’t have to face all those challenges and I just stay at university. Would you, for someone who doesn’t actually see him or herself having a career at university, would you actually recommend doing a postdoc or would you say: No, there’s some danger involved in that as well, and there actually good reasons not to do so.

Let’s start with the statistics. So my, my last number is, and this is not to scare you, it’s just like, you know, we want, we want you to be informed. So we say about 3% of PhD graduates will go on to be professors in Germany. And one of the best ways to increase your chances is to get a junior professorship that’s like something like 40% or maybe even like 70%.
There’s a lot of different numbers that of, of people who do the junior professorship become as a type of postdoc, become professors long term. The junior group leader is also a really good way to kind of get on that tenure track.
Otherwise, I would say the question is how far away is your postdoc topic from the non university job market. So if there is an application for what you’re doing and you think that you could find somebody in industry who would say, yeah, I could imagine that having like a real world use in the non academia world, right? They’re both real, I guess, but the non-academic world that I can go out into industry or in, in, you know, development work and say like, this is something that’s useful, then it’s okay. Then it’s no problem to go on and do a postdoc.
If your postdoc is taking you really far away from an applicable topic, so something that you can really see that somebody would quickly be able to understand, has an industrial application, has an application in NGO work, wherever it is, you see yourself working. That is where it becomes a challenge because the longer you stay in academia, the more employers will worry that you are not going to be able to feel comfortable and be able to adjust to the industrial job market, the values of the industry, which are really different, right?
In industry it’s about making money or maybe even not even just making money, but like creating something with a value, right? So in help and aid work. We’re not talking about like these academic discussions. We’re talking about what can we actually do right now?
And sometimes in aid work, for example, or in development work, the thing you end up doing is not really something that academics would jump in and do. They’d say, oh, we really need to talk about that first, because there’s a lot of, you know, a lot of sides. I’m an anthropologist from my background, so I would say, you know, there’s a really big disconnect between what applied anthropologists are doing in aid work and what anthropologists and academia are writing about. They’re not always, I mean, sometimes they are close, but they’re often very far apart, right? And so if you have these postdocs that are really far away, that becomes a challenge. And so I would really look and see, is my postdoc taking me in the right direction?
And another thing you can think about is you can look for a postdoc in industry or, you know, an industry is not just industry like pharma. It’s also all that NGO and aid work. You can look for a postdoc in what is we call academia adjacent worlds, right? So in science management and civil service. You can also do what I like to call a DIY postdoc, or you find your own funding and then you find an industry partner or you know an NGO partner that you want to work with.
There’s a funding database in Germany. There’s a lot of funding out there. You can look and see if you can find something and you can make a match. And those, those are strategies that will let you stay in academia a little longer.
But if you’re gonna do that, you really, really need to make sure that you’re also building those hands-on skills. So you wanna get involved in other stuff. One example that we have here in the university that I didn’t mention before, is the career day from the Humboldt Graduate School. And that happens every year in February, you can actually get involved and there’s another conference called Incredible Research, which is through the Charité, but again it’s BUA so you all can get involved, right?
And those two events are student organized conferences on different topics. And so getting involved in that is a really good way of building hands-on skills. And, you know, you just show up and you get a lot of support. And I mean, those are really great ways in the career day. Also lets you explore more about careers. So that’s a pretty good, pretty good place for you to be.

That’s very good and wise. Thanks a lot for that. Actually, I would like to talk to you about the „Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz“ (German Act on Fixed-Term Scientific Contracts) as well, because especially for people who feel like they wanna stay longer at university, this will be important at one point.
Amanda, could you enlighten me and my listeners? What’s the „Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz“ and why does it matter? Why is it so important?

So this is, I think, like very unique to Germany. I mean, there are other countries that have something similar, but so in Germany, the German government doesn’t want you to be in a temporary contract.
They think temporary contracts are bad. And the reason for that is basically all these insurance, like maternity leave, health insurance, long-term care injury insurance, unemployment insurance are all paid by the employer. So when people in Germany are on unemployment one (AGL 1), as we would call it their unemployer paid insurance and the government would prefer that nobody ends up on unemployment two (AGL 2) or what you may have heard of as Hartz IV, right? Because it’s not so great, the government has to then pay for it, right? So the first one is paid by the insurance employer. And the idea is they don’t want anyone on temporary contracts, except they’ve made an exception for a couple of things.
And one of the things that they’ve made an exception for is science. So basically the government has said science, it’s okay. Temporary contracts are okay, but you only have a certain amount of time. And right now, and this is gonna change, they’re discussing the change. But right now you have six years before you finish your PhD. And six years after, and that’s cumulative. Not like the clock starts today, but adding up all the time that you worked in a certain type of job.
And so a lot of the jobs in academia especially the postdoc positions a large, large, large portion of those jobs are „Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz“. So, that means that they fall under this category of jobs and you only have six years and sometimes you can borrow, and if you have kids, it’s longer and there’s like all this stuff that you can do. So what we would recommend is if you’re worried about it, you’re not sure and, and you haven’t finished your PhD, but you’re about to, each employer who is employing you under this kind of law, this exception, they will tell you how much time you have left.
So you can ask them. And again, right now, the clock resets when you finish your PhD most of the time. So you can ask them like, how many, you know, years do I have left? And why is this important? Because basically if you don’t get to tenure track before you run out of time, it makes it very, very difficult because, and again, it depends on the job, it depends on the type of funding.
It’s way too complicated to explain like you know, in a short podcast. But there are positions out there that are science positions that are funded in a way that doesn’t impact this. But a lot of them do use this type of exceptions. So that means you really only have, I would say like, those six working years, once you complete your, your PhD.
If you run out of that time, then you can’t take another postdoc, and that makes it really, really hard for you to, to kind of make that jump to tenure track because those pre-tenure, like the, you know junior professor, the junior research group leader, all of that is usually on this contract.
So if you don’t have any time left, you won’t be able to take on that job. And what we usually tell people to do is if you, if you run out of time and you wanna stay in academia, you have to go abroad. So there’s always kind of this loophole. You can just leave. It doesn’t count. Work done abroad is not part of this this exception.
But it’s just important to keep that in mind because if you’re not aware of it and you run out of time and you really wanna stay in academia, yes, you can go abroad, but we want you to be able to make that decision yourself and not have that decision made for you. And so being aware of it can make you give you permission to make your own decisions.

So that’s definitely something you wanna consider, especially if you wanna stay in academia. Amanda, is there anything important that we haven’t discussed yet? Is there anything you would like to add?

Maybe one thing. I think it’s really, really important that you sit down as early as you can. Give yourself the gift of the time that you will invest in your own career planning. Even if you have no idea what you’re gonna do, just like make a deal with yourself and say, I’m gonna take some time for me. You deserve this. Like this is your time. Even if you don’t know what you wanna do and you’re not sure where you’re gonna go.
Giving yourself permission to maybe take like half an hour a week or maybe you’re closer to the end of your PhD. Take a little more time. Take like an hour, set yourself some time aside and really spend some time on yourself and don’t wait until it’s done. Don’t wait until you’re finished.
Cause a lot of people mistake or they mix up career planning with applications, those are two different things. So applying for a job, that’s one thing, but deciding what you wanna do, that’s actually like a completely different project. And so give yourself time to spend on yourself and like end up thinking about, you know, what do you wanna do, where do you wanna go?
And you might say, oh, that feels so overwhelming, I don’t wanna do it. But the earlier you start and the more time you give yourself, the less scary it becomes because you can break it down to tiny pieces and you can say, today I’m just gonna start by making a mind map of all the things that you think you might wanna do.
And then start from there and like, learn about those things. Talk to people who are working in the field and the more time that you have, the more likely you are to be able to use the time while you’re still a student to like, take advantage of the university offerings or go take a class or build some soft skills or, you know, sit in on a, a lecture on something that you might need. You can do all this stuff because while you’re a student, you have access once you’re not a student anymore your access is much more limited.
And so we would really recommend I would recommend everyone that I work with recommends take the time for yourself. Give yourself that, that gift, gift of time which just for you where you’re focusing on yourself and what you wanna do.

Amanda, thank you very much for your gift of time. Thank you very much for this interview filled with facts, with information, and with great advice and thank you.

Outro

Hello again, dear listeners. I hope you enjoyed the interview with Amanda Wichert as much as I did. Remember to explore the resources mentioned during our conversation.
For your convenience you find all of them on our episode’s website together with a transcript of our discussion in case you want to revisit certain parts of the interview. Wishing you a great date and until next time.

[Note: your host for this episode was Dr. Marlies Klamt.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

INTRO

Welcome to our interview on the topic of first-generation doctorate. Today, we will talk about what it feels like to be the first person in your family to pursue a doctorate – the opportunities challenges, and what information or support can help people start such a project. My name is Alexandra Skoric, and I’m responsible for the qualification program at Dahlem Research School. I’m very pleased to introduce my interview partner Lito Kyriakidou, who is currently pursuing her doctorate at Freie Universität Berlin. 

INTERVIEW

Lito, could you please introduce yourself? 

Hi, I’m Lito. I am from Cyprus. I’m a doctoral researcher at Freie Universität Berlin, within the Graduate School of Ancient Studies, and I do my doctorate in classical archeology. I work with ancient vase painting, with a focus on archaic times, which is the sixth Century BCE, and I look at decorative principles on vase painting from Italy that have significant influences from the Greek culture. 

Interesting. What made you decide to study archeology? 

I have always wanted to study archeology. I don’t remember myself not wanting to do that, actually. I think it has to do with the fact that in Cyprus, at school, archeology is really present: in our books we have objects, our history is also part of our everyday life; and it also has to do for me, for sure, with my own family: I remember lots of family vacations to different archaeological sites, or even on weekends within my country, just going – mostly with my dad – on small excursions in Cyprus. He’s a teacher, so he’s very enthusiastic. 

Lito, what was your reason to study in Germany? 

I always knew I wanted to study abroad. I decided for Germany for many different reasons. Of course, German is a very important language for archeology. It’s one of our main languages, in fact, especially in studies of imagery, there is still quite some research being made in German. So, a friend of my mom’s who is an archaeologist suggested that I learn German because it’s an important language for studying archeology. And then I also, as a kid, was always told that I’m organized and very structured, which is something people stereotypically associate with Germany. So, I thought that this way of life or studying would maybe match my character – to a certain extent, of course. 

So, that was the idea. I moved to Germany in 2018, when I was 17, and I started my Bachelor’s in Heidelberg, and did my Master’s there as well, and then moved to Berlin for the doctorate. 

So, you started learning German when you got to Germany, or did you learn the language at school? 

No, I started learning German in Cyprus already. We don’t have German as a proper class in school, so it was extracurricular.  At school we learn French, which I am quite bad at, and I did extracurriculars. So, I did German classes in the afternoons since I was around 12. I learned for five to six years before coming to Germany, and I did my TestDaF, which is “Test Deutsch als Fremdsprache” [Test of German as a Foreign Language] from the Goethe Institute in Cyprus.

What did you struggle with most when you came to Germany? 

I think one of the biggest challenges was the language. It’s a very different feeling to sit in a class. At first, I was in a class, then, I was doing one-on-one courses with my teachers … so, it’s a very different thing to always speak in formal language with one teacher, and then suddenly being placed in an environment with lots of peers, and I had barely used the informal ‘you’ before coming to Germany, which was very funny. It was one of the first things that people called me out on: “You don’t have to speak to us so formally, we are students as well.” 

So, it was a bit different in that way, and also navigating the German academic system. Both of my parents have done their Bachelor’s, but they haven’t done so in Germany, so they studied in very different systems, which were more exam-based. Archeology is a study where we barely did exams, only at the very start, and then we do lots of essays, written work. And while my German peers navigate learning scientific writing, I’m learning writing altogether – and then, on top of that, scientific writing.

So, it was very hard at the start, and I was very lucky: the university in Heidelberg is a small community for archeology, so I meet people very fast. But I didn’t feel comfortable giving my very badly written, at the start, essays to anyone to correct. I handed in some essays that were not that good in the first year, until I got the hang of it. 

Other than the language, did you have to overcome other challenges? 

For sure. There were some challenges in the administrative part as well: filling out the paperwork and trying to understand some words – like ‘module’ itself is okay, but ‘Studienhandbuch’ [study guide] and ‘Prüfungsordnung’ [examination regulation], these very big words that I had never heard of before was challenging. The first day at university, I remember our study counselor pulling out this presentation with the entirety of the plan of the bachelor’s program, the structure, and I hadn’t seen it before, and I felt like some people in the room had. I came a little bit with the mindset that I have certain classes I have to take, which is not the case; I feel much freer in choosing. But yeah, that was also a bit hard to figure out. Thankfully, there was an orientation week for international students that I participated in, then specific introduction courses or events for new students in archeology. And both of these things were really helpful, as well as the people from what we call the ‘Fachschaft’, which is a students’ initiative that supports any student that might have a problem. I think they would also be very happy to get in contact with doctoral researchers, and it’s a great way to meet new people: just getting involved, showing up at parties. It might be a bit difficult at the start, but it gets better over time. 

It sounds overwhelming, and it seems like you mastered it quite good. You told me that you had a very good time in Heidelberg; what was the reason for you to move to Berlin?

I was very happy in Heidelberg, with the community and with the university, but I felt like, for the doctorate I would profit from a peer network, which I would have had in Heidelberg, but only to a certain extent; the Institute for classical archeology, also in Berlin, is rather small. We are always a small number of people, but we have, through the graduate school, contact with many other institutes. So, you don’t end up quite secluded, necessarily. Obviously, it depends on if you’re in a structured program or not, and how active you are as a person. But through the graduate school I got to meet so many people, so many amazing people in my life that are maybe studying some different form of archeology, but we might have common interests, for example in visual culture, which is my doctoral program, it’s on ancient objects and visual studies. So, I’ve met many amazing people there. We maybe don’t have the exact same focus, but we get to exchange our methods, and that was very important to me. 

And I also felt like Berlin has a lot to offer, with the museums right by your door and the Berlin University Alliance as a whole offers many more things, because we have four different universities working together rather than just your one institute or university. 

Lito, you’re the first in your family doing a doctorate. Can you describe the moment when you told your family about your plans to aim for a doctorate?

It was actually not that difficult for them to accept. They have always been extremely supportive. I am very blessed to have them. And they were immediately on board, and have supported me also through the difficult phrase that is changing universities, writing an exposé, and trying to get the project started. I always felt a bit bad about when I called it home, and I couldn’t report them actual progress. It’s a different thing to plan a project, a big project like that, versus being able to call home and say, “Oh, I passed an exam!” or “My essay went well!” and things like that. But they were extremely supportive from the start, even though most parents would advise against studying archeology due to a difficult career afterwards. But no, they were absolutely great. 

And It was only … I think it was a lot of pressure from myself to be able to say, “Okay, I got this. I got this started and I’m going to Berlin” and so on, as it’s really difficult to find a house in Berlin. So, my move was also delayed by some of those factors that I couldn’t do anything about.

When we talk about first-generation doctorates, we usually mean people who come from families without an academic background or university degree. Why do you consider yourself part of this group?

I think that first-gen doesn’t necessarily mean only people whose families have studied at all – though it’s very important to have support for this group as well. I think, for myself, why I would count myself as a first-gen student, is that a doctorate is a whole other level. I think that doing your Bachelor’s and Master’s have become almost a normal thing nowadays, especially in Germany. I feel like there are a lot of people that pursue a Bachelor’s and Masters, but it’s a very different thing to go from a very structured program and assignments that are of a certain length, or the thesis –  my thesis for my Master’s was 80 pages, I know that there are universities that do a little bit less – but the doctorate is very different in the sense that you will have to take some time off between Master’s and doctorate. You have to plan on the project from scratch. You maybe don’t necessarily even know how to write your project outline – and also due to the fact that I am doing so in my third language, I am writing my doctorate German. There’s more challenges in that: I have to proofread my text way more, and I don’t have anyone at home who might not have any idea about what I’m writing, but can just read my text and tell me “Okay, this sentence doesn’t make any sense.”

I do, I have my wonderful boyfriend who always helps me since the very start of my studies, almost. I didn’t have this access from the get-go, from my first year in Germany.

So I think being first-gen is much more complicated and has many more aspects nowadays than it used to have. I think as a first-gen doctoral researcher, it counts, even if you are just the first in the family to pursue this higher education. Because academia has so many things that are a mystery when you are just a student: this networking aspect, how to write my CV, how to write an outline. I maybe knew the basics, but It’s not the same. I feel that when you start the doctorate, you may be a bit lost. 

How do you think being an international researcher in Germany affects your experience as a doctoral researcher?

I think it is affected in, maybe, everyday scenarios. So, as an international doctoral researcher, you belong to a group of people that is not German, but you belong to the German academic environment, and you’re in this position that you’re in-between the two words. You also obviously have maybe more difficulties in navigating the system itself. I can’t say that for myself anymore because I was lucky enough to start studying in Germany from scratch and the language itself also from the very start. But all this paperwork is confusing when you have just arrived. I have many friends that only came to Germany for their doctorate, so it’s a very difficult situation to both navigate starting the project, but also creating your life from scratch in a new place.

And I think at least on that part it might be the same for Germans moving within Germany, but at least for that part Berlin was also difficult. For me, it was a very different way to socialize than I was used to. In Heidelberg, I would just go to the institute, we had our own library, I’d just show up and then people see me once, twice, thrice, and then it’s “Oh, who is this person? Let’s go talk to her.” and I’ve made a friend. But in Berlin, the city is so huge that, even people that you consider very close friends, you need to keep pressing, “Let’s meet up, let’s do this and that.” So, I think this might also be a struggle for someone who is not used to it, and also the intercultural part. Here in Berlin we are much more international, I would say, so we have to figure out how to navigate relationships with people from many different countries and just, yeah, just learn more about everyone’s culture. 

You are not just the first in your family doing a doctorate, but also in your friend group. What support do they ask from you? 

Meanwhile, my friends have started their studies as well, and I think that what I get asked the most is usually when they’re in the phase between their Master’s and their doctorate, trying to figure out how to properly plan the doctorate and how to actually apply for scholarships, which is one of the biggest problems that we have as people in the humanities sector. Unfortunately, in the humanities, we do not have paid positions in universities. I only have one friend with such a position; everyone else is struggling through writing applications. And because I was more or less one of the first to be starting, I have sent my project outline to a lot of friends. It was the same for me: friends from higher semesters also sent theirs to me, and we try to support each other as best as we can. 

So they at least have you, as they are already going through it. That’s a great support system for them. 

Yes, and for me too. I am really happy to have people in my life that are actively supporting me through this journey; people that are maybe near the end of their dissertation, and I’ve met them later in life, who are just there to hear me out, or people that I’ve met here in Berlin, but also people that I’ve studied with. It’s a very great environment to be in. 

Lito, besides doing your doctorate at Freie Universität, you also work at Dahlem Research School, where we met and worked together in the qualification department. Besides working there part-time, you also participate in workshops from both perspectives. What workshops would you recommend for your peers? 

I feel that we have so many workshops in our workshop program that are absolutely worth it, I feel bad naming just a few. But for me personally, I really enjoyed our course on knowledge management – getting organized, which was about how to use digital tools to structure your project better. I feel like it was an absolute game changer to use Obsidian for my notes and linking thoughts between each other. Absolutely amazing, I’m using it on the daily. And then I also enjoyed, of course, the Kick-off. It is a great opportunity to meet a very big amount of people within Berlin; not only doctoral researchers at Freie Universität, but also from the other Berlin University Alliance institutions. And you also get the opportunity to maybe get your questions answered by experts if you sign up for a slot for an individual consultation.

But also, on the workshop front, It’s really helped me to do the writer’s block and procrastination workshop. I had been experiencing this problem that every time I opened my document to write something, I’d think “This is your dissertation, it’s very important. You should really be concentrated and right from the first draft!” It is very good to hear by a writing expert: “Well, it’s okay if the first draft is not that good.” So, I would totally recommend that too. 

Lito, is there anything that I forgot to ask you?

I think the most important thing is just to reach out, to not be worried that your question is not a smart question or whatever. Just, if you have a doctoral program with student representatives, go to them. If you meet people, maybe not at the very start of your studies, but you’ve met them along the way, and you want to get their expertise – go for it. Just ask. It’s really important that you just ask and create meaningful connections. 

Just as a last point, I would like to mention that on the second of June [2026], we are organizing the Berlin University Alliance First-Gen Connect event, which I will also participate in as a speaker. But our team, alongside the Humboldt-Universität, is preparing for that. So, we would be very happy if some of you joined us to create a network. 

More information will be linked on our website, as well as the WhatsApp group you started with a few peers. Can you say a few words about for what purpose the network was started? 

Yes, of course. The network was started for communicating with other first generation doctoral researchers at the other Berlin universities, as well as colleagues from the graduate studies support program, of course. We created this WhatsApp Community as a way of directly communicating with each other and having a place where everyone can ask questions and ask for help if they need that. Whether they are at the start, during or finishing their dissertation and starting their career. 

Thank you for the interview. 

Thank you, Lito. 

OUTRO

And also, thank you for listening to this episode of the dearest podcast. If you are interested in more episodes on the topic of first generation doctorates, check out our website.

[Note: your host for this episode was Aleksandra Skoric.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

[Note: This interview was conducted in German. The following transcript is an automatic English translation of the German interview, which you can find here.]

Intro

Welcome to the DRS podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and I’m looking forward to today’s episode, in which I have Martin Lücke as my guest. Martin Lücke is Professor of Historical Education at Freie Universität Berlin and I’m talking to him about the topic of First-Generation doctoral researchers. He is the first in his family to embark on an academic career and he shares his personal experiences and tells me how he made it into academia, even though no one in his family went to university. We talk about the particular challenges that doctoral candidates from non-academic families have to overcome and what universities, professors and doctoral candidates themselves can do to overcome these challenges.

A major topic is how more diversity and equal opportunities can be promoted in academia, and Professor Lücke will also provide practical tips for all first-generation doctoral candidates. The programme also covers exciting topics such as the imposter syndrome, self-doubt and the importance of networks and mentoring. If you’re interested, either because you’re a first-generation academic yourself or perhaps because you’re interested in diversity and equal opportunities in general, then be sure to stay tuned. It will be inspiring; it will be honest and full of helpful insights. Enjoy listening to the interview!

Interview

Welcome to the podcast, Professor Lücke. You are Professor of Historical Education at Freie Universität Berlin, where you are also a member of the Diversity Leadership Team and, and this will also form the core of our conversation today, you come from a non-academic family yourself. You also participate in multiple committees and are active in the promotion of science. Perhaps you would like to briefly introduce yourself and name the key aspects of your person that are most important to you.

With pleasure! The fact that I am where I am now, i.e. Professor of Historical Education at the FU Berlin, was by no means planned or part of any major strategic considerations. After graduating from high school, which is perhaps almost characteristic of first-generation students, I started studying to become a teacher, also with a clear career perspective of going into teaching later on. After completing my teacher training programme, I did the classic preparatory service, which I did in the state of Berlin. I had previously studied in Bielefeld and always wanted to go into research a little and going into research a little is of course difficult and then I was very lucky to get a doctoral scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation straight after the preparatory service.

And then it was always such an interplay between school, between historical education, between gender history and diversity history and then, I think in retrospect, I ended up quite quickly at this Professor of Historical Education at the FU Berlin. In other words, there wasn’t some kind of plan behind it, but it basically happened that way, if I were to summarise it retrospectively.

I would like to jump back to the point “studies”. Was it clear from the very start that you would study after graduating high school, or did you at first still think about doing an apprenticeship or take a different career path?

It was actually clear that I would want to study after doing my high school diploma. My parents valued it very much that I would start studying at the university. I myself had the idea at some points in-between to start an apprenticeship as an organ builder. My parents said “no, you were successful most of the time in school, you are going to study at the university now”. I was not accompanied by the rhetorics of being the First from the family [to study], but it was just clear that this would be the path afterwards. That means it was self-explanatory: it didn’t have to be forced upon anyone, and my parents didn’t have to be convinced. It was so to say self-explanatory and then the rest of my path was then developed. We discussed which subjects could be it, which subjects were meaningful, but that I would study after my high school diploma was never questioned interestingly.

Yes, that is very interesting. The difference between organ builder and professor of history is also interesting. What were the biggest challenges on your path in the academic world?

The challenges that I only became aware of later were that at the beginning of the academic world, I was constantly being signalled that the work I was doing or the way I was performing in seminars, the way results were being presented, was not sufficient or that I had come into contact with academic forms of representation that initially seemed totally foreign to me. Of course, I can only say a lot of this retrospectively, but I found the university as an academic space very strange at first. I hardly felt comfortable in university seminars at first because there were always three or four people who were very quick to take the floor, who also used rhetoric that was very foreign to me at the time.

And when I thought I could contribute, I always felt, well, inferior sounds too big a word, but not so equal and always thought, well, you can’t dress it up in this sophisticated rhetoric anyway. You can’t present the arguments, the counterarguments with such rigour and that caused a great deal of uncertainty. I found that very remarkable. In history, I studied history and German, and it was much more noticeable in history than in German, where it was much easier to get into a dialogue in seminars, to exchange ideas, to make your own statement, including in terms of content.

And can you remember if there was at some point a conscious turning point or maybe also a key moment when you said, although I felt foreign here in the beginning, science is my calling?

In hindsight, that was two things. Firstly, something completely different, seemingly different. At some point I started to get involved in science politics at the university, was first active in the queer committee and then in the Asta (student senate), and in this way I grew into science from the political fringes, so to speak. But then, contrary to expectations, after my intermediate examination in history, I got a really good response for the paper I wrote. I hadn’t even dreamed of it. I was praised so much for this intermediate examination paper by the supervising lecturers that I thought, well, maybe your insecurity was also the wrong way to approach this academic business and I have to say that this was a kind of key moment that made me think, well, maybe you can do something after all or maybe it’s worth getting more involved in the seminars, in academic communication and so on.

And do you think there was a positive response to your work because you have somehow adapted, or you found out how to write and present in the academical style? Or was it maybe that you found a person that saw the potential in you and appreciated what you had to offer?

I think the latter, because I was also signalled there, i.e. with really detailed consultations on this intermediate examination paper, that the paper was really good in terms of content and argumentation, but that there was room for improvement, so to speak, in terms of academic appearance, the use of certain forms of language and so on. And that was also always the case with the two supervisors at the time, it wasn’t a kind of real mentoring relationship, but perhaps a shorter coaching relationship in retrospect, it was always a topic that, when it was signalled, basically stay as you are, but then also try to sell yourself as best you can in the academic world without feeling like a stranger. And it was always a really big help to me that I had this very good intermediate examination paper in my bag, but that I was also told to do something now because I can do it, but I also have to try a bit to stay like I am.

Yes, amazing. And what would you say is generally the role that the support networks played for your career path. I think arbeiterkind.de, that probably existed after you were already done with your studies and your doctoral studies. You have already mentioned mentors, the two supervisors of your thesis, but were there more people or networks where you could say that they played a role in your academic success?

In the end, apart from a small number of lecturers at the university, that was a good networking opportunity with other fellow students. So, we were a group of people who talked to each other a lot. We often prepared together. We attended seminars together. So, it really was a network with other students, not all of whom came from non-academic families, but where we had come together a bit to continue on the same path at university. And essentially, they were all teacher training students who had a classic career goal in mind. So, for a while, we studied very consistently in accordance with the study regulations, so to speak, and looked at how we could get through the system as well as possible, but also effectively, and then actively organise this phase of our studies.

When one looks at your profile on the website of the university, then one notices that you have as a first point under your biography that you are a first generation academic. What led you to decide to put this information out so openly and at such a top spot?

The first reason, and the really important one, is that I am really proud of it and that I don’t want to give the impression that this is some kind of deficit biography that is being told. Because I mentioned briefly at the beginning that my parents and my family never hindered me on my path into the academic world but always encouraged me and also reinforced the resources that my parents had, but which they also didn’t have. And I’m really proud of that. For example, I received BAföG (financial support for students) during my studies, but never the maximum rate, because people think that today: Non-academic households, they don’t have any money, and things aren’t really good for them materially either. At least at the time when I was studying, a worker’s income was a really good thing. In other words, it was never materially precarious, and we also saw the world with my parents and went on holidays and all that. But I want to signalise that I’m very proud that it actually worked out this way, but also that it’s not statistically possible for someone from a non-academic household to climb the academic ladder so quickly, so to speak.

A third result could also be that you encourage people that are in the same situation.

Yes, absolutely. And in fact, students often talk to me about it. They never do it publicly or in lectures, but often during consultation hours. Or often, when they sign up for consultation hours, they simply mention it in passing. Of course, this means that when there are consultation hours with students, and I know this in advance, I look forward to these appointments much more because I know that it’s also about talking about biographical matters, but then I also know that I might be able to meet the students in a different way.

Many students are afraid to go to consultation hours with professors. I can’t understand that myself, because I think, ‘Gosh, nobody has to be afraid of me, but respect or something in front of academic authorities, that happens quite often. And if this is signalled in advance, it is actually encouraging, but also perhaps something like not having so much respect or also creating the opportunity for students to signal in advance that someone is also coming from a first-generation family, so that you can start a completely different conversation right away.

Yes, and I think it could well be due to the fact that people have already had negative experiences with other professors and this fear stems from that.

Yes, right!  And I’ve never had a student tell me that it was explicitly signalled that you don’t fit in with us or you don’t fit into our habitus concept because you come from a non-academic family, but it’s usually a diffuse feeling of rejection or not belonging. Explicit markers of difference in the academic world are that people talk about migrant backgrounds and often about student teachers, who are perceived as not performing so well or something, and rarely explicitly about first-generation students. And I think a lot of this happens on an implicit level with students, that they realise that they may not meet with the same approval as other students in terms of their habitual appearance and the way they present themselves. And here it is indeed important that lecturers very quickly signalise that, hey, here with us, with me, when you come to the consultation hour, this is not the issue for the time being.

I definitely want to talk to you in a moment about how we can respond better to needs and how you can do this yourself. But first, I would like to briefly define the terms. Or rather, I would like to ask you how you define the term first generation doctoral student.

I would define a first generation doctorate as a person who actually starts a doctorate after graduation and comes from a family with a broad and wide family concept, of course, where the person is not the first to have an academic career or doctorate, so to speak, among all cousins and siblings, but where at least the parents do not have an academic degree and have not attempted a doctorate. It may be that the precise definitions in terms of subject are different. And I have often learnt from students who were socialised in East Germany and who also look back on East German family biographies that academic professions were grouped a little differently there and that some professions were classified as academic, and some were not and it was different in the old Federal Republic.

But I would say that the academic degree or doctorate of the parents is actually the decisive criterion in that sense. Almost regardless of whether you have a kind of peer network of siblings or cousins or other relatives who also have a doctorate.

And do you think there are different challenges when one is in the first generation of doing their doctorate in comparison to their studies?

Yes, because the phase of material insecurity is a longer one. You have to have the confidence to be courageous over a longer period of time, to embark on another doctoral path that does not lead to a concrete professional qualification and that does not lead to a clear career perspective in material terms. Because as I said briefly earlier, for many or some first-generation students, the problem is not essentially a material deficit from the family, so to speak, but a socialisation topos that we actually assume that an education leads to a profession and that something similar is expected from a degree. And of course you have to free yourself from that in the doctorate. And have a bit more stamina, develop stamina, in order to be able to endure this perhaps longer dry spell of lacking prospects.

Yes, that’s a very interesting point. And things like you described earlier, in your own career during your studies, that you initially felt alienated and perhaps didn’t get to grips with the academic language or scientific working methods and presentation style. Do you think these are things that have actually already been dealt with during your doctoral studies, you’ve got used to it, otherwise you don’t do it? Or are you saying that this is still an issue for many people?

I believe that it is still an issue for many people, but I think that also depends very much on the subject of the doctorate. I did my doctorate in gender history and even back then I always worked in history didactics. These are fields in the field of education and history in which there are already many more people who combine political, emancipatory ideas with academic practice and in which there are also quantitatively many more people from non-academic families, from first-generation families, so that the field in which I did my doctorate, gender history, was actually a rather open field for first-generation doctoral researchers. It can be completely different in other subjects, perhaps in art history, perhaps in philosophy.

A student who is doing her doctorate in art history recently told me that she went on an excursion to Italy for the first time with her fellow doctoral researchers and was totally ridiculed for travelling to Italy for the first time in her life. And these are experiences that you don’t have in gender history. There is much more basic understanding of the material or local or habitual limitations of those who then start the doctorate. In other words, because of the field that I sought out or that perhaps found me, it never became as virulent as perhaps in other fields.

Are there any studies on whether first generation doctoral researchers are more represented in some subjects rather than in others? Do you know anything about that?

So there are studies that show that, at least in the field of study, first-generation students are much more prevalent in the educational sciences, specialised didactics and in the teaching profession. And it’s not a study, but it’s a kind of personal empiricism that many of my professorial colleagues in subject didactics professorships across the board, across the subjects, tend to come from non-academic families, from first generation families, than in other subjects. I experience this time and again, and we talk about it quite openly.

Now it just sounded like, when you mentioned this excursion to Italy, that there is still a lot to reflect on at universities, let’s say. Do you generally think that universities in Germany are prepared for the needs of first-generation students and doctoral candidates?

I think, no, without playing off different categories of diversity against each other. I don’t want to be misunderstood at any point, there is rightly, and I think this is absolutely right, a great deal of sensibility in the area of discrimination in relation to gender and discrimination in relation to sexual identity. But I’ve also noticed a kind of stifled ignorance, a stifled silence in many of the meetings I’ve attended at my university when it comes to what the deficits of students from first generation families are. It’s always dismissed as, well, do they fulfil the performance standards that have to be met? It’s almost the same helplessness that prevails here and at many universities with students from immigrant backgrounds.

You don’t know exactly how to deal with them and there is often a sense of insecurity or even fear that this might lower performance standards or that the university will have to orientate itself towards performance requirements or the way it provides support. In other words, it is very rarely explicitly stated. It is also rarely said at universities that universities are institutions that create social inequality anyway. If there are still a lot of people who say that we come to this university because of social inequality, then perhaps it is also a structural problem that students don’t like to talk about.

Talk to us a bit more about how universities might create social injustices.

We all know, and this is unfortunately empirically proven in a very depressing way, that the education system in Germany is unequal and unfair. The three-tier school system does not really manage to level out social inequalities but rather reproduces them. And the same applies to those students who actually end up at universities later on. A much smaller percentage of students who come from non-academic households, from first-generation households, go to university, and the bottleneck becomes even narrower when it comes to doctorates and later also when it comes to professorships. In other words, it is evidently demonstrable that students from first-generation families fare even worse in this bottleneck of the university than students from academic families. And in this respect, the university system, the education system with the bottleneck of the doctorate, is structurally designed so that students from non-academic families will drop out at some point, so to speak. They are not planned for. Not habitual, but also not in the idea of ​​what career path you will take after your doctorate and so on. So I would say that the idea of ​​college and university, as we think of it in Germany, well, structurally also has the mission of not allowing students from first-generation families to get as far as students from other families. That may be a blatant political statement, but I’ll leave it as it is for now.

It is also very important to speak about this because if one doesn’t talk about it, then there won’t be any changes. What do you think can be done by professors or supervisors of doctoral thesis so that one can adapt to the needs of first generation doctoral candidates, also in cases where the supervisors don’t have the same background such as you now.

It is important to make it very clear to doctoral researchers in supervisory relationships that you should speak to me ahead of time if you have any difficulties. Are the difficulties material? Is it because you have to earn money on the side while you are doing your doctorate? Is it because you cannot cope with the workload? Is it because you cannot structure your working day properly? Because I have no idea what networks doctoral researchers are in that might be able to help them in other ways. And I know that timely discussions with supervisors are important in order to really clarify what my problems are? Am I perhaps not suitable for a doctorate after all?

That can always come out. That can always come out with all students. Or how can other problems be solved? How can it be that I still have to do a lot of material work to support myself because I am not getting any funding for my doctorate? What does that do to the work plan? So, it is important to always, always, always try to talk to the carers about these problems as often as possible. Of course, the supervisors also have to signal that they are available to talk. I think that is essential.

Would you do that in general or if you already know that someone is a first-generation doctoral candidate or student? Because you have to know that first in order to then be able to signal, talk to me. Or do you say, no, I would do that regardless of that, because there could be other reasons why someone might not be able to cope with their work. I would just always signal, no matter what it is, I’m open to hearing things, come to me.

I would always signal to all students, all doctoral candidates, talk to me, but really to first generation students in a much more emphatic way. Because when I say to doctoral candidates from academic households, talk to me, they do it because they know how it works, and they know that it is also common practice. While doctoral candidates from first generation families first of all really need to know that a supervisor is there for this purpose, that the supervisory relationship also has this function and that it is anything but a shame to actually do it. It is not about somehow maintaining pride or not having to talk about certain things.

So, what my experience has shown: Many doctoral candidates from academic households know this and they do it. Some don’t do it because they don’t need to, but students from first generation families need to be explicitly encouraged, they need to know really clearly that it is possible, and it is even expected. This is part of a good care relationship.

But in order to speak to them explicitly about this, one has to know that these are first-generation doctoral researchers.

Most people tell me that. Most of my doctoral researchers tell me that explicitly, if I haven’t already heard about it through contacts in the last phase of their studies, in conversations, or seen it in their CVs. But I usually know that before I actually have to ask. So that’s usually what they tell me themselves.

Now I am curious because you said you can see it through the CV. One doesn’t usually list the professions of their parents. How do you notice through the CV?

What I am saying is not empirically valid at all, but many students write down their part-time jobs in their CVs that they did alongside their studies. And if it is not just assistant jobs at universities, but if it is something like – I am exaggerating completely – saleswomen, salespeople in a textile shop or waiters in a bar or at Burger King or McDonalds, I somehow have an initial suspicion that it is a person who perhaps comes from a first-generation family. And when I then talk to the students or future doctoral candidates about it, it is usually brought up very openly and quickly. Then it is made explicit.

That’s good, because it’s another marker that’s relatively neutral, even if you say it’s not empirical, but it’s an observation that you’ve made, which your colleagues can perhaps take to heart, even if they’re not quite as sensitive, because you have to have a certain level of sensitivity to be able to sense it or ask about it and know that a person is first generation, I assume.

Correct.

Do you think that other students or doctoral candidates might not even list a part-time job like this at Burger King, but would say, I’ll just write down the student assistant job because it’s related to the job I’m applying for, and I’ll ignore the other stuff, even if I may have done it, like waiting tables?

That could be right. I also ask students when a situation arises where we have an advertisement for a student assistant position and I then say this in the lecture, look here, you can apply to us here. I then say explicitly, go ahead and write down all the jobs you have done, even if you initially think that they have nothing to do with the specific position you will be applying for later with us. Not even in order to then really investigate them later: Well, are you first generation or not? But for me that is an important clue as to whether it might be the case after all and then to develop a sensitivity for it in the conversation.

Back to the university as a system. How would you say we can promote more diversity in science? Generally speaking, on the one hand, but of course also with regard to different origins in relation to the level of education of the prospective scientists‘ families of origin.

We must encourage students and especially doctoral candidates to tell us this again and again when it comes to introducing themselves in discussion groups or taking a stand in seminar contributions. That it is always about talking about things like family origins or, for me, sexual orientation. That it becomes a natural topic that things are explicitly in the discourse. That sounds harsh now and it sounds as if I am demanding over and over again from students or doctoral candidates to confess to supposedly private things that are eminently political. But these things must always be on the table so that it is always clear to the outside world that there are people who make the university environment much more diverse than we think at first glance.

So, adopt a certain transparent and perhaps to a certain extent confrontational attitude here.

Right. And that can sound like a kamikaze undertaking. Because of course it may not be met with a positive response from all colleagues, or it may be seen as superfluous or outside the field or something like that. But my opinion is actually that those who, because of a certain privilege, can afford to talk about their social background, gender, sexual identity, should do so. Because in fact, if you manage to attend a university in the German education system, you have already achieved a high degree of privilege.

And when you have achieved this high degree of privilege, you can always make it your task to provide information about who you are with this degree of privilege. When we work with diversity categories or describe ourselves with them, we are often used to describing ourselves first using the categories that discriminate against us and not the categories that perhaps privilege us. That means I can also stand up in my lecture and say that I am a gay working-class child. That is correct and true. But then I use categories that initially make me appear marginalized. But I can only do it in this specific social position in the lecture hall because I am a male, German, white professor. And very different categories come into play, but it is important to always make them visible so that the awareness that social inequalities and injustices arise also has something to do with these social categories.

Do you think that this is something that could be established in an academic context, that one imagines oneself in such a way that one first names the categories that privilege one and then those on the basis of which one is potentially discriminated against?

I think that would be good. We are currently running into debates that we probably cannot go into in depth here, with wokeness and identity politics and so on. These are big, different, complex debates. But I think it would be good if, in introduction rounds, we first developed a sensitivity for categories that privilege us and then for categories that potentially discriminate against us, or at least mentioned both, so that we then also determine what kind of domination-ridden space academic education takes place in.

Let’s make it a little more complex, because one of your research fields is intersectionality. Now that we have just talked about the diversity categories, I would ask you to briefly define it for those listening who may not know what intersectionality is, and then say what you think intersectionality means in the context of first-generation doctoral studies.

Intersectionality means that there are different social categories in society that describe our standing, our social position in society, so to speak. Classic categories from the USA are race, class and gender. Many others are conceivable. Ethnicity, religion or, in Germany, the much-cited migration background. Intersectionality is about starting to think about how these categories interact with each other and how these categories are categories that, through their interaction, simultaneously ensure that we are privileged in a certain way and in another way ensure that we are also marginalized in a certain way. I can stand in a lecture and say that I am a gay working-class child, then I would take up a category like sexual identity and a category like class.

At the same time, I can say that I am a German, white professor. Then I would take categories that make me appear privileged, which I undoubtedly am, there is no need to kid ourselves about that. And then you can reflect on how these categories are connected. Make assumptions about them. Well, does it have something to do with my gender that I was able to become a professor as a gay working-class child? What if I, as her person, had a so-called migrant background and came from a first-generation family? What would it be like then with privilege and non-privilege and so on? So, you could always reflect on intersectional categories, i.e. the interaction of social categories, to see: well, where do I stand myself and what does that have to do with the power relations as I move around in the academic world.

Thank you for your explanations and also for the many examples. I think it is also important for our listeners, who perhaps tend to use categories that indicate privilege, to be clear about what other realities exist. I would now like to briefly shift the perspective and no longer focus on what universities and professors can do but rather focus more on doctoral candidates and those interested in doing a doctorate. We have already talked about this a bit before, but perhaps there is further advice you would give to someone who is the first in their family to pursue a doctorate.

One important piece of advice from me is to really take the time to calmly think about whether you want to do this. And don’t come to the idea too quickly, well, I don’t know if this will work and if I can do it but rather let yourself be carried away by the enthusiasm of a topic for a while and then think about whether I would like to work on this topic more intensively. So first give yourself the space to think about a doctorate through your own thinking or, to put it much more bluntly: people, dare to do it, because it’s within your horizon. You can do it too, you’re no worse than anyone else. And if you have a topic that interests you so much that you want to think about it scientifically for a long time, then seriously think about wanting to do it. That’s not a pipe dream.

And then, in the second step, of course, look at who are possible allies on the path that I can then take. How can I take up the topic further? How can I implement it? But really, first of all, make it conscious. And if I want to do that, then there are ways to go down that path and find supporters.

I would like to briefly touch on the first step or the first point you mentioned, because on the one hand I think it’s very nice to say that I’ll let myself be driven and motivated by the enthusiasm and interest that I have, for example, for academic work or for a specific topic. I asked myself whether it’s worthwhile to reflect on my own motivation right from the start, in terms of whether I really have a lot of intrinsic motivation or whether I perhaps have to prove something to someone or whether it’s been passed on to me as a kind of inheritance from my family that I’m now the person who proves to the outside world that an academic career is possible, for example.

Yes, you’re raising a very important point, because it should always be clear to doctoral candidates that if their motivation is to prove to their family or the world that they can do it, then it is a legitimate goal, a legitimate concern to really want to prove it, and at the same time they potentially need to protect themselves from disappointment. Because maybe, I haven’t experienced that in my family myself, but I hear it again and again, because then something like a successful doctorate might not get the recognition in the family that the doctorate deserves or that it deserves in the academic world.

If you only want to do a doctorate out of the awareness that you can do it yourself or prove it to your family, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Because there are now many other fields in which you can prove what you’re capable of professionally, what you can achieve. I think that a doctorate is the wrong field in which you can prove how capable you are or that you can socialize in this academic world. That leads to a lot of disappointment, I think.

It’s just the only field that allows you to have the popular two letters in front of your name.

Yes, right. Well, that can always be the case. I mean, in my field, history, it’s rare that people explicitly approach me and say that I want to do a doctorate so that I can later be qualified for certain jobs, so that I can do something completely different in medicine or law or earn a lot more money as a lawyer once I’ve got my doctorate. That doesn’t happen in our field, it’s really the ticket to a further academic career. And that requires enthusiasm for the topic and taking it seriously that you can even enter the realm of possibilities offered by a doctorate. If you do it just out of a kind of persistence, to say, I can do it too, I want to prove it, it will not lead to a good end. That is my prognosis.

If you have decided to do this because you are interested in the topic, in academic work, and then during your doctorate you have to fight impostor syndrome, I have a lot of self-doubt. What strategies have helped you personally to deal with it? Or maybe you’ll say that these were things that didn’t affect me at all, even now, when I didn’t have to fight with them.

During my doctorate I always had serious doubts about whether I would ever find a job in the field of history later on that would enable me to live off of it in a very banal way, as a historian at a university or research institution, and I was always personally lucky – and that’s why what I’m saying here now is perhaps not so representative of my biography – that I had this classic teaching degree. I always had the option of going back to school, which would never have been a step backwards or anything like that for me. That means I was able to do science and do my doctorate with the knowledge that you can do something else that potentially won’t make you unhappy for the rest of your life.

That was a privilege because I had the opportunity to study to become a teacher first. That means I had the option of falling back, and falling back didn’t mean that I had a worse chance, but it would have worked, so I was able to approach my doctorate with, well, let’s say, inner calm. I had funding from a scholarship, and I knew that you could always go back to school, then it would be fine. That’s why I never experienced the time of my doctorate as a time of such great professional fears, but I did really think about it, well, you really enjoy what you’re doing now, is it an opportunity that you can live off of financially later on, if that happens, wonderful, if it doesn’t happen, well, the alternatives aren’t the worst either.

Yes, I can understand that. Also, what you mentioned at the beginning of the interview and what is also my experience is that first generation students and doctoral candidates often have an increased need for security, especially regarding financial matters.

Yes, that’s right. And sometimes students from academic households laugh at it a little and label it as an exaggerated need for security. But in a neoliberal society we’ve perhaps already reached the point where people don’t really want to talk about professional insecurity anymore. But it’s clear that through what we do, through our education, we also have the goal of somehow achieving secure prospects. And for first-generation students, it’s often a more explicit concern because they can’t rely on the material or habitual networks of their academic family. In that sense, it’s understandable, but it’s also an opportunity to free themselves from it in an emancipatory way.

Are there scholarships that you would recommend for first generation doctoral researchers, or would you say that a scholarship might not be the correct way because someone has even less social security because one doesn’t pay the unemployment insurance and so on?

You are completely right that a scholarship is seen socio-politically as not the best opportunity, especially for health and pension insurance. At the same time there are foundations that value first-generation biographies, the Heinrich-Böll-foundation, the Hans-Böckler-foundation, the Friedrich-Ebert-foundation, also the Rosa-Luxemburg-foundation see this as a productive element of the CV, when one mentions that they are from a first-generation family. All foundations make it a bit difficult because volunteer work, which for me is also a sign of incorporating into the academic habitus, sometimes is taken into account too much, but the foundations have meanwhile gone into thinking that well, volunteer work is something that one has to afford in order to do it. But a scholarship is also a very good opportunity to even have a material income at the start, so that you can continue working on your thesis.  Better, of course, and more secure, are positions for academic staff. They are technically much better for social insurance purposes. This also depends on finding supervisors at universities that allow the “free room” on an everyday basis to work and bring your doctoral thesis to a good end. For academic positions in the work area or professorships it is usually the case that there is way more academic administration and teaching. That means one has more tasks alongside their own doctoral project.

We have come to the end of the interview.

Okay.

Is there a message that you want to send specifically to doctoral researchers from non-academic families?

I hope that a lot of people would hopefully say at this point, first of all it is not a deficit and second, I don’t perceive your family ever as a problematic space and a deficit. They are proud of you; you should also be proud of them. My mother is the only person who has read all of my texts, I should maybe say that again at this point. And allow yourself to make your family’s history visible in this privileged system of the university.

Is there another important point that we forgot to discuss?

I don’t think so. One could say a lot on a subject-specific basis. I think that everything I have said is true in the first line for the humanities, again with a focus on people who are in the teaching courses or in gender history where habitual problems are different than in other departments. But I can naturally only give information on that.

Thank you very much Prof. Lücke for sharing your experience with us and for giving us so many insights.

With pleasure.

Outro

This was an interview with Professor Martin Lücke, in which we discussed about the challenges and opportunities of the first generation of doctoral researchers. You can also listen to our other episodes. You will find more inspiring discussions and some interesting insights on the subject doctoral studies. On the website of this episode we will also link additional information in case you want to read more on the subject of today’s episode or Professor Martin Lücke himself. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and this was the DRS Podcast, a podcast of Dahlem Research School of the Free University of Berlin. Thank you very much for listening and see you on the next episode.

[Note: Your host for this episode was Dr. Marlies Klamt.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

[Note: This interview was conducted in German. The following transcript is an automatic English translation of the German interview, which you can find here.]

Intro

Welcome to the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt, and I am delighted to be hosting today’s episode, in which I will be talking to Dr. Steffen Jaksztat. He is a sociologist and has been working at the DZHW, the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies, since 2008. His research focuses on the educational and career paths of doctoral graduates and on how social background influences decisions to pursue a doctorate and career opportunities.

This makes him the perfect guest for today’s episode topic: first-generation doctorates and the influence of social background on the decision to pursue a doctorate. We talk about how the social composition of doctoral candidates in Germany has changed, the role of the parental home in the decision to pursue a doctorate, why role models and expectations are so important, and what needs to change to better align educational advancement and doctoral studies.

Interview

Welcome, Mr. Jaksztat. It’s great to have you as a guest on the DRS podcast today. You conduct research at the German Center for Higher Education and Science Studies on the educational and career paths of doctoral graduates. Social inequalities play a recurring role in this research. Perhaps we could start by you briefly introducing yourself. What are you currently working on, and what fascinates you most about doctoral research?

I am also very much looking forward to the interview. My name is Steffen Jaksztat, I am a researcher at the DZHW and I am the project manager of the Nacaps project. Nacaps stands for National Academics Panel Study. What we do in this project is try to improve the data available on young academics, i.e. doctoral students and doctoral graduates in Germany, by conducting regular surveys within these groups.

We have been doing this for several years now with a team of currently seven employees and two student assistants. We conduct long-term studies with doctoral candidates and doctoral graduates to learn more about their qualification progress during their doctorates, about the heterogeneity of doctorates, and, of course, about their career paths after graduation. The data we collect will be made available to the scientific community via Scientific Use Files, and we also want to give the universities participating in our project the opportunity to learn more about their doctoral candidates.

If you look at your data and studies, who is doing a doctorate in Germany today and who is not?

The official statistics from the Federal Statistical Office provide a relatively large amount of information about doctoral candidates and graduates. The latest figures available show that there are currently over 200,000 doctoral candidates at German universities. And yes, there are clear focal points in terms of subject groups. The largest group are doctoral candidates in human medicine and health sciences, followed by doctoral candidates in mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering. So those are the largest groups of doctoral candidates.

If you look at this over a longitudinal period, i.e., over time, and take a look at the number of doctorates completed, you can clearly see that the number of doctorates completed in Germany has tended to rise in recent decades. Here, you also have relatively long time series to look at, covering the last 30 years. And we can see that at the beginning of the 1990s, we still had 21,000 doctorates completed annually in Germany.

And now, a good 30 years later, there are just under 27,000 doctorates, which is a noticeable increase, but one that has not been linear; there have always been peaks and valleys. And what you can also see quite clearly in the figures is that this upward trend in the number of doctorates is largely due to the fact that, over time, more and more women have completed a doctorate.

So here, too, we have a comparison over time. In 1993, just over 30 percent of all doctorates were completed by women. And now, 30 years later, the figure is 46 percent. What we can also see in the data is that we have seen significant growth in the number of young international researchers in Germany, who now account for more than a fifth of doctoral degrees. That’s just some structural information, so to speak, about the size of the group we’re talking about.

Thank you very much for this interesting information. You have already mentioned a number of developments that have taken place over the last few decades. Do you think that structured doctoral programs or new funding programs, for example, have also had an influence?

I think you can see that… I mentioned that the number of doctorates has not increased linearly, but that there have always been peaks. This is certainly also related to funding programs, such as the Excellence Initiative, in connection with which many structured doctoral programs have of course been developed. Basically, I think it’s fair to say that the doctoral landscape has become more diverse in recent years, with more structured programs being added. However, this does not mean that the classic doctorate in a research assistant position is no longer relevant, but rather that there is now a coexistence of different forms of doctoral study.

You mentioned at the beginning that there are major differences in terms of the subjects in which doctoral degrees are awarded. You pointed out that women now account for a much higher proportion of doctoral degrees—almost half, not quite, but almost half. What is the situation beyond that in terms of the social composition of doctoral candidates? Can you say anything more about that?

There are several studies that have looked into this question, i.e., the extent to which social background influences the likelihood of pursuing a doctorate. And all of these studies actually come to the conclusion that there are social differences. In other words, the higher the level of education in the parental home, the more likely it is that someone will start a doctorate after completing their studies.

Yes, I find it very interesting that even at this, if you will, very late or final stage of education, which is the last one you can tackle, so to speak, inequalities still exist, because inequality research and education research have consistently shown that social inequalities also occur in all preceding educational decisions and stages of education, i.e., in the transition to high school, the acquisition of a high school diploma, the commencement of a degree program, and the successful completion of a degree program. In other words, social inequalities can be found in all preceding stages of education. To perhaps back this up with figures once again, there is a regular publication called the Education Funnel, which is published by the DZHW, and it shows that in Germany, out of 100 children from non-academic families, 25 children find their way to university. And if the parents have studied, 78 out of 100 children take up a course of study. So, inequalities in educational attainment accumulate over time, so to speak.

Do you happen to have the figures for doctoral students at hand? How much difference is there?

That depends very much on which study you look at and what data was used. I once conducted a study myself, which looked at university graduates from 2005. I looked at who had started a doctoral program in the five years after graduating, and found that around a quarter of those from non-academic backgrounds had started a doctoral program, while over 40 percent of those whose parents both had a university degree had started a doctoral program.

Okay, so it also makes a difference whether both parents went to university or just one parent.

That’s what the data shows, yes. It’s relatively clear. I mean, it’s a relatively broad categorization. We have non-academics, then the group with one academic parent and with two academic parents. Of course, that’s still a relatively broad categorization. If you were to differentiate further, for example, the group of non-academic children, that could mean many different things. Either the parents have no professional qualifications at all, or they have vocational training, or whatever. And even among academics, one could differentiate further, for example, whether the parents have a doctorate. If one differentiates further, one naturally gets a more differentiated picture, and a particularly high tendency to pursue a doctorate is naturally found among people who come from a family where either the father or mother has a doctorate.

So, in summary, we could say that the higher the level of education attained by parents, the more likely it is that I will also attain a high level of education or a comparably high level.

Yes, one can say this for sure.

I have another question about the definition. You just mentioned it. When we talk about first-generation doctoral students, which is often the case, are we referring to doctoral students from working-class families, or are we referring to doctoral students whose parents may have studied but did not earn a doctorate themselves?

Yes, ultimately it’s a question of operationalization. I would say that first-generation students are people who come from a family where their parents did not attend university themselves. But as I said, it’s a question of how educational background was ultimately measured in empirical studies.

Yes, I find it more detailed for students. For the doctoral candidates, I have always asked my self, is this about whether the parents have also done their doctorate or is it more about whether they have an academic background.

Well, I would say that I would personally define first-generation doctoral candidates as people from non-academic backgrounds who are pursuing a doctorate.

I would like to come back to the point you mentioned earlier, which I find very important and also very interesting. Namely, how strongly the parental home influences the decision of whether someone pursues a doctorate or not. Can you say a little bit about that?

Studies on this topic often attribute differences in background to so-called primary and secondary background effects. Primary effects of origin essentially refer to differences in performance between individuals from academic and non-academic backgrounds, which are mainly the result of different socialization and support conditions. It can therefore be assumed that the level of education in the parental home and its cultural proximity I would say, to university-relevant educational content, the early promotion of cognitive abilities, cultural, linguistic, and social skills, and that this ultimately results in the performance potential of members of education-oriented social classes simply being better exploited because they are simply better supported.

And this, of course, leads to better school and university performance and higher participation in education. So, primary effects of origin: performance differences due to socialization. And the secondary effects of origin, which refer to origin-specific decision-making behavior. Educational research often assumes that educational decisions involve weighing up costs, benefits, and probabilities of success.

And this shows that educational qualifications are valued differently depending on social background and, consequently, are pursued with varying frequency. For example, it’s about the question of to what extent a doctorate or other educational qualification can be a means of status reproduction. In other words, can I achieve at least the same level as my parents with the educational qualification I’m aiming for? This, especially when referring to a doctorate, means that those from higher social classes are the primary beneficiaries.

So for everyone else from non-academic backgrounds, this goal is essentially already more than achieved the moment they obtain a university degree. On the cost side, it’s about the question of whether I can imagine temporarily foregoing income, because I generally earn less during a doctorate than if I enter the job market directly with my master’s degree. If we broaden the concept of costs, perhaps to include psychological costs, then it also involves the question of how I cope with uncertainty. Will I be able to successfully complete my doctorate? Do I have the confidence to do it? Do I have an idea of ​​what I will do with the degree? Yes, these are crucial questions that are likely to be answered differently depending on one’s social background.

One can assume that for people from materially privileged backgrounds, not every decision necessarily has to be evaluated based on its, let’s say, direct benefit, simply because material security allows more room to perhaps try things out or pursue one’s own interests more strongly, without immediately knowing what one will do with it, without a guarantee that it will ultimately benefit one.

What is also perhaps relevant in this decision-making situation is that pursuing a doctorate for children from non-academic backgrounds often requires greater adjustments and may also involve a degree of alienation from their social environment. So, these would be, if you will, psychological costs that can arise for those from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, but not to the same extent for those from more highly educated backgrounds.

Yes, very interesting. And that also shows how multifaceted and complex the influence of one’s family background is on the decision to pursue a doctorate. All these things can play a role to varying degrees. What role would you say role role models or family expectations play with regard to the decision to pursue a doctorate?

I think both of those things play a very important role. Educational expectations are generally a good predictor of educational success, I think that’s fair to say. And social role models are especially important, and this is often what children from non-academic backgrounds lack, because they don’t necessarily know people in their family who have already earned a doctorate, and therefore might not have such a clear idea of ​​what career paths are possible with a doctorate.

And the reaction isn’t always positive, because, as you mentioned, you can become estranged from your family, who might also be afraid of losing you if you pursue a doctorate. I remember my mother, who didn’t study herself, actually said to me when I told her I wanted to do a doctorate: „Does this really have to happen too?“ So, the expected reaction from your family, whether it occurs or not, certainly plays a role when you decide to pursue a doctorate or are even considering it.

Yes, I think many people from non-academic backgrounds are familiar with this, especially after graduating from high school. They often hear things like, „Well, now you have your high school diploma, you can choose what kind of training you want to do, what kind of vocational training.“ Or, „Why don’t you do vocational training before university, so you have something to fall back on and not this…“ They’re often advised against making the uncertain decision of going to university, studying something with an unclear career path, so to speak. And that certainly applies to doctoral studies after university as well.

Or perhaps even more so.

Yes.

We’ve talked a lot about the decision to pursue a doctorate, specifically the point at the end of one’s studies, or perhaps even later, when one considers starting a doctorate. Now, let’s look at doctoral candidates who are already well into their studies: What challenges do doctoral candidates without an academic background most frequently face during their doctoral studies?

I think it’s often about gaining confidence in one’s own abilities, developing the feeling, „Yes, I can do this, I can achieve this, I have what it takes to pursue this further education.“ And I would guess that people from less privileged backgrounds can particularly benefit from mentors who simply give them positive feedback. This can even happen during their studies. For example, if I work as a student assistant alongside my studies and make contact with professors or other early-career researchers, and simply realize that what I’m doing, the work I’m doing, is recognized and I’m receiving positive feedback. This can, of course, have a positive impact on self-efficacy, on confidence in one’s own abilities.

Thank you for highlighting the importance of mentors. That leads perfectly into my next question. One thing you repeatedly emphasize in your research is the importance of supervision and working conditions. Why do you think these play such a crucial role?

Yes, it has been shown, for example, that close contact with the supervisor can have a positive effect and, for instance, reduce the risk of dropping out of the doctoral program, as can the exchange with other doctoral candidates who are in the same situation. In a sense, one could break this down to social and academic integration, which I believe is an important factor for all doctoral candidates in order to master this long doctoral phase, which is inevitably associated with minor crises and challenges of varying degrees.

You just mentioned dropping out of doctoral studies. Is there any evidence that students from non-academic households drop out more frequently or perhaps take longer to complete their studies? Or are there no available statistics on this?

There is not enough data for that. It seems to be that people from non-academic households could have a somewhat bigger possibility of dropping out. Same goes for women during the doctoral studies.

Do we know why that is?

I can only speculate at this point. Perhaps it’s due to issues of integration into this academic context. Perhaps they also become somewhat discouraged during their doctoral studies by the uncertain prospects that arise after a doctorate, especially when considering academic careers. These are primarily just assumptions.

Let’s stick with the point in time, namely the end of the doctorate or the period after the doctorate. How do the career decisions of doctoral graduates from non-academic backgrounds differ from those of graduates from academic backgrounds after completing their doctorates?

What we’re seeing is that only a small percentage of graduates actually remain in academia in the medium term. We conducted a study looking at where graduates are employed five years after completing their doctorates, and it showed that far less than a third are still working in academia five years later. The vast majority move into non-academic or non-scientific fields, into the private sector, or into the public service after their doctorates. That seems to be the norm.

What I find interesting is that a doctorate is an academic qualification; it’s supposed to teach you how to conduct independent research and demonstrate that through an independent contribution to research. And yet, due in part to career structures and the number of available positions at universities and research institutions, the vast majority leave academia after completing their doctorates. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t use the skills and abilities they learned during their doctoral studies; rather, it means that they simply move into other fields of activity and still frequently perform science-related tasks there as well.

There are also studies—you asked about this—on whether these groups differ, meaning people from academic and non-academic backgrounds. Several studies have specifically examined academic career paths, and these show little to no difference. In other words, background doesn’t necessarily influence the likelihood of someone remaining in academia after their doctorate. There are isolated studies, for specific disciplines, such as those focusing on postdoctoral researchers, that show social background can play a role in professorial appointments, but overall, there don’t seem to be significant differences between background groups regarding career paths after the doctorate. However, there are also other, older studies, such as the one by Michael Hartmann. He investigated whether social background affects the chances of reaching top positions in the private sector, for example. He did find disadvantages for doctoral graduates from non-academic backgrounds.

Yes, so perhaps a cautiously positive outlook for the future. In your more recent work, you often talk about the so-called job mismatch, meaning that someone is employed below their qualification level. Is this something that occurs very frequently among doctoral graduates, and how exactly can we imagine it? Do you perhaps have a few examples?

Exactly, I’m currently working on a study about this with a colleague. We’ve found that job mismatch does occur, but it doesn’t seem to be a very big problem. We’ve found that approximately 15 percent of graduates are affected by job mismatch in the first seven years after completing their doctorate. Job mismatch here means that someone has a professional position where their doctorate plays no role, might even be a disadvantage, or where there’s no connection to the skills and knowledge gained during their doctoral studies.

But this only affects a relatively small percentage of graduates overall. We’re also seeing significant differences between disciplines and that it’s strongly linked to the fields of work graduates enter after completing their doctorate. For example, if you imagine an engineer moving into private sector research and development, that would be a good example where there’s likely to be a very close match between the job and the qualifications acquired through the doctorate. And in other areas, the situation might look different. For example, if you switch to a non-research-related position in the public sector or to the private sector. Here, the data shows that there are also differences depending on the discipline, meaning that people with humanities backgrounds are particularly affected by job mismatch than, for example, people with technical or scientific backgrounds.

To be honest, I almost expected it to primarily affect humanities scholars, although 15 percent is a relatively small percentage. And as you said at the beginning, that doesn’t necessarily mean that one might be unhappy in the position one has afterwards, just because it’s no longer directly related to the doctorate or the skills acquired there.

Yes, exactly, if I may chime in. While switching to fields outside academia does increase the risk of job mismatch, there are also several positive aspects, such as higher income in the private sector or greater job security. This is because, at least below professorships, temporary contracts are the norm in academia, which is quite different in other professional contexts. And research also shows that doctorate holders can generally generate income advantages, particularly in the private sector. So, a doctorate is financially worthwhile, if you will.

I’d like to briefly return to an aspect you touched upon earlier, namely that I believe only about a third of graduates are still working in academia five years after completing their doctorates. Who stays in academia, who changes careers, and for what reasons?

The decision regarding which career path to pursue depends, among other things, on one’s personal preferences. For example, our data shows that graduates with strong career aspirations—that is, those who prioritize earning a high salary, having high status, and holding a prestigious position—are more likely to move into the private sector. Conversely, graduates with strong preferences for autonomy tend to remain in academia. Of course, objective labor market conditions also play a role.

Here, the specific field of study, subjective assessment (how do I perceive my opportunities in a particular area?), and support also come into play. To what extent was I encouraged during my doctoral studies to consider different career paths and explore my professional options?

Now back to the first-generation doctoral students. What would you say helps those who are the first in their family to study and then also earn a doctorate the most to successfully complete their doctorate?

I think this probably applies to all doctoral candidates: you need to create an environment that is supportive and beneficial for you. And I don’t think there’s one specific context you have to choose; rather, you can have a very supportive relationship with your supervisors, with other doctoral candidates, and of course also with your personal social network. It’s about reflecting on what kind of support you need and then considering where and how you can get it.

Perhaps specifically for first-generation doctoral candidates, it can also be helpful to examine your own biography and become aware of your own strengths and successes—your educational background, what you’ve already achieved, and what obstacles you may have already overcome. It might also be helpful to exchange experiences with others who have similar biographies. I think these could be ways to get support. In addition, of course, a certain degree of stability is necessary, in terms of employment and funding for the doctorate; this should be a given for everyone. That one has scholarships or doctoral positions that actually make it possible to carry out a doctoral project from beginning to end.

That leads directly to my next question. Thinking about the future, what would need to change in the doctoral system, in the academic system, so that social background eventually no longer plays a role?

Do you mean the educational system in general or just regarding doctoral candidates?

Especially with regard to doctoral candidates, but I suspect it would probably have to start earlier so that more doctorates are pursued by people from non-academic families.

Yes, fundamentally, I believe we must assume that the education system as a whole needs to provide special support, particularly for those from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds, simply to unlock the full potential that people possess. And if this potential cannot be realized through support at home, then it should happen within the education system, in schools or universities. I think that what people from non-academic backgrounds can benefit from are things like, if we’re talking about doctoral studies, formalized selection and evaluation procedures. For example, when awarding doctoral positions, decisions should be made based on objective criteria and not ultimately on personal fit.

That could be one possibility. If we think about students, the research assistant positions I already mentioned would be a way to provide support before the doctoral phase, simply because I think research assistant positions have the potential to inspire people to pursue research, to encourage them to undertake a doctorate, to make contacts, and simply to get a glimpse into academic work contexts. I think that could be helpful.

Mr. Jaksztat, we are nearing the end of our interview. Is there any important aspect we should definitely address that we haven’t mentioned yet?

Another point worth mentioning, which also explains some of the differences in access to doctoral studies, is the choice of subject based on background, which plays a significant role in the emergence of inequalities. Certain subjects, like medicine or law, are more commonly chosen by children of academics. And these are also subjects with relatively high doctoral graduation rates. Medicine, in particular, where a doctorate is practically the standard qualification. We haven’t yet discussed this path. I think it’s a relevant point for understanding how inequalities arise.

Yes, thank you for this important explanation. It’s definitely a very interesting point and might give some people pause for thought, especially those who are just starting their studies or deciding on a career path, although they probably aren’t yet considering a doctorate. I’d like to thank you for this wonderful interview. I learned a great deal and gained a lot from it, and I’m sure our listeners feel the same way.

Yes, thank you very much for the interview.

Outro

This was Dr. Steffen Jaksztat discussing educational background, social inequality, and the role of one’s family in the decision for or against pursuing a doctorate. This is the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. The conversation made it very clear how strongly background and environment can shape one’s path into academia, from the initial decision to pursue a doctorate to the subsequent career steps. Further perspectives on doctoral studies and the academic world can be found in other episodes of the DRS Podcast, covering topics such as supervision, funding, and the dynamics of power in academia. Thank you for listening, and we look forward to the next episode here on the Dahlem Research School Podcast.

[Note: Your host for this interview was Dr. Marlies Klamt.]

Return to the Podcast episode here

[Note: This interview was conducted in German. The following transcript is an automatic English translation of the German interview, which you can find here.]

Intro

Welcome to the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I am Dr Marlies Klamt and I am delighted to be hosting today’s episode, in which my guest is Alina Franziska Becker. Alina is a research assistant and doctoral candidate at LMU Munich, a scholarship holder at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and has been active at ArbeiterKind.de for many years. Today, we will be discussing the topic of first-generation doctorates and financing doctoral studies. We will focus on questions such as what funding options are generally available and how Alina uses the combination of a scholarship and a university position; what the choice of funding means for everyday life, time pressure, networks and career opportunities; why transitions between expiring contracts or scholarships are so crucial; and what support from networks such as ArbeiterKind.de looks like in practice. But enough introductions, here is the interview.

Interview

Alina, it’s great to have you here on the podcast today. I’ll start right away with two questions and warn you in advance. The second one is one that you might not normally ask. First of all, what stage of your doctorate are you currently at and how are you financing your doctorate at the moment?

Hello, Marlies. Yes, I’m actually in the middle of my doctorate right now. I’ve already collected my data and am now working on the evaluation and writing process. And yes, the question of financing is quite exciting. I’m financing my doctorate through a scholarship as well as a position at LMU Munich.

I see, very interesting. I’m sure you’ll tell us more about that in a moment. What was it like when you decided to do your doctorate? What role did your financing play in that decision? So was that something you considered from the outset? Or did you perhaps say to yourself, no, without secure funding, I won’t even attempt the doctoral project? Or was that an issue that only came up later?

That was definitely an issue for me from the outset, and to be honest, I kind of stumbled into it. I really wanted to do a doctorate. At the end of my master’s degree, it was clear to me that I really enjoyed it and that I could definitely see myself doing it. But only on condition that it was funded.

I asked my master’s thesis supervisor, because I also worked for him as a research assistant, and he said he would think it was great if I did a doctorate, but he didn’t have a position for me and we could write an application together to the German Research Foundation. But writing an application like that takes time. It takes at least a few months, I would say. And during that time, you’re not funded, and you don’t know whether it will be successful at all, whether the application will be approved.

So I had already kind of given up on the idea of doing a doctorate. Then a position as a research assistant was advertised at the institute where I did my bachelor’s degree. I applied for it and was actually accepted, so I had a 75 per cent position at the university for two years and started my doctorate during that time.

During those two years, I also wrote an application to the German Research Foundation together with my doctoral supervisor. But I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been funded, because it simply wouldn’t have been an option for me. It was just too uncertain.

Yes, it’s very interesting that you say that, even before the topic of supervision, perhaps even before the thematic focus or the methodological approach, securing funding was your top priority, so to speak. Do you think that’s typical for first-generation students?

Yes. I think everyone has to deal with these uncertainties, of course, and that’s difficult for everyone, but it’s different when I know that I have this financial background, that I have this security that I can at least get through six months. But if I don’t have that security, if I know… Well, it depends on me, and if there’s no money, then there’s just no money, and that’s something that affects first-generation academics more often than people from academic households.

There are many different ways to finance a doctorate. You have already mentioned two options. Could you outline the main options available for our listeners?

Of course, there is a position at a department as a research assistant. And these are often staggered, i.e. 50, 65, 75 per cent. Or they are not directly affiliated with the department at all, but are funded by the German Research Foundation or other third-party funding sources.

Or there is the possibility of a scholarship. And to that end, I should perhaps briefly explain how I ended up with my scholarship and also got a job at the university. And yes, what actually happened was that the application I wrote together with my doctoral supervisor was not accepted at first. Because you have to know that only about a third of all applications are successful.

This also means that once you’ve written an application, there’s still uncertainty as to whether the funding will actually be available. And it takes a relatively long time to get feedback. You can certainly have a bit of luck or a bit of bad luck. In my case, it took almost a year before we knew whether the application had been successful.

And although we had two positive reviews, we ultimately received a negative decision. You can then make improvements and resubmit the application and perhaps just wait it out. But for me, the question of funding was again in the back of my mind and I knew that my contract would eventually expire and now I had somehow started this doctorate and would like to continue it. What if the application was rejected again the second time around?

So I applied for a doctoral scholarship at the same time. That’s the other major option for financing your doctorate. And to be honest, that also took some time. The application process takes several months, but fortunately it was successful in my case.

But I just didn’t have the opportunity to wait and see if it would work out this time when my contract expired. The chances are good. We have two positive reviews. It’ll work out.

In the end, I just didn’t have that ease, partly because I have two daughters and therefore a responsibility to ensure that we can continue financially. And since my doctorate… It’s important to me and I’d like to do it, but without funding, no doctorate.

Did you have your daughters already before you started your doctorate?

I actually had them during my doctoral studies, right at the beginning of my doctorate. One in 2020 and the other in 2022. That means they have accompanied me throughout the entire process of both my doctoral studies and my search for funding, and are now three and five years old.

So you had the research assistant position, you also named a scholarship as a financing option. What other options are there for financing a doctorate?

Of course, you can always work full-time and do your doctorate on the side, although that naturally requires extreme time management skills.

And I also regularly deal with doctoral candidates who, at least temporarily, finance their doctorates through their family environment, be it parents or partners.

Of course, you have to be able to do that, and I do think that first-generation academics in particular may have fewer opportunities to do so, which makes it all the more important to have a secure source of funding that does not place too much of a burden on other family members, even though it is nice to have that option, of course.

Yes. Nowadays, the different forms of funding differ not only in terms of what you get, i.e. the financial aspect, but also in terms of the consequences this has for how you do your doctorate, for example the time pressure you are under, the freedom you have in the research process, but also in terms of access to networks and career opportunities. Did that influence your own decision to choose a particular form of funding, or did you say, the main thing is that my doctorate is funded, the rest is not so important to me?

So I actually thought to myself, the main thing is that my doctorate is funded. I am aware that, of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to both a job and a scholarship. And perhaps it also depends a little on what stage of the doctorate you are currently at. But I didn’t have the luxury of choosing what suited me best. Instead, I really thought, okay, whatever opportunity I get, I’ll take it.

And in the end, I now have the doctoral scholarship, and this doctoral scholarship can be combined with ten hours of academic work at a university with all major scholarship providers. And that actually gives you a bit of the best of both worlds, because on the one hand you have the independence that comes with a doctoral scholarship, three and a half years of funding, or even four and a half years if you have children. On the other hand, this position at the university gives you access to a network, and you are more involved in academic processes, conferences and perhaps even publications. And that can actually be combined quite well if it’s a position that’s up to 25 per cent of full-time.

Exactly, you just told us that. So you currently have a 25 per cent position as a research assistant. Does that affect your scholarship? Is it reduced, or are you allowed to work up to 10 hours a week, and if so, is that exactly what you earn?

Exactly, so you can combine the two. That’s either five hours a week doing non-academic work or ten hours a week doing academic work that is beneficial to your doctorate in some way. And that’s exactly why, in my case, I can combine those ten hours at the university. Exactly, 25 per cent plus the doctoral scholarship.

Would you like to say a little more about the advantages and disadvantages for you personally of having both the scholarship and the research assistant position? In other words, where do you see the benefits of both and where might the disadvantages lie?

So if you are fully involved in university life, you usually have a great deal of work to do. Teaching, for example, takes up a lot of time, as do other tasks that are always required in such departments. And because I am now only involved in a 25 per cent position, I am of course only burdened with 25 per cent of the tasks, in quotation marks, and have relatively little teaching, only from time to time, not every semester.

So, thanks to the doctoral scholarship, I have a relatively high degree of freedom and a lot of time for my dissertation. I would say that this is definitely one advantage of a doctoral scholarship, that you can really concentrate on your own dissertation and don’t get completely bogged down in institute tasks. At the same time, you are still involved, you have a kind of collegium, you are not completely alone with your doctorate, but are always in contact with others. Of course, you can also have that with a doctoral scholarship, but it’s something else when you’re at a university like this, when you regularly attend the Joure Fix, the research colloquia and so on, and you also have contact with all the people, especially when it comes to what might happen after the doctorate, because that’s the next big question, which then becomes even more difficult in terms of financing. And there it is certainly an advantage to have a good network, to be connected in some way, to be known and, ideally, to have already published a little something.

When it comes to access to networks, would you say that both types of funding give you access to different networks? Or, as you just described, do you see the advantage in your work at the university, where you simply come into contact with other people who also work in an academic context?

So definitely both, but it certainly also depends on the subject. The scholarship also gives you access to a network of really great, committed, interesting people, who may not necessarily be in your own field. And then there’s the question of what you want. Do you want to continue in academia or do you want to switch fields and look for a job?

Do I need contacts for this, or do I want to stay in academia? And then it certainly depends on the subject, but in my subject, which is also rather small, in empirical cultural studies, I think it’s important to actually be at the university, because there you have completely different contacts. So, definitely both networks are super helpful and super important, but perhaps with slightly different focuses.

Thank you very much for these important points. Based on your experience, are there any types of financing that you would say are particularly difficult for first-generation students to access or might seem risky at first? Or, to ask the question the other way around, which options are perhaps underestimated, even though they could offer good opportunities?

The classic scenario is that people always think a scholarship isn’t for them. I would absolutely refute that and say you should definitely give it a try and apply. I think it’s a great opportunity to do a doctorate with a scholarship. I see the danger that, especially as a first-generation academic, you might feel a bit lonely and have to find your own way in, if you don’t have any other connections.

At the same time, research assistant positions are incredibly rare, although this certainly varies from department to department. In general, however, there aren’t that many of them, and writing an application to the German Research Foundation or most other third-party funding providers is not something you can do as a doctoral candidate. You always need someone who already has a doctorate or even a postdoctoral qualification to help you write the application. This means that you need to have the right contacts in order to be able to write the application in the first place and have a chance of getting funding. That’s why it’s often another big hurdle and, as I mentioned at the beginning, both require an exposé, which I have to write first.

And writing this exposé, in turn, costs me time. And if I’m not funded during this time, then that’s a hurdle that first-generation academics often can’t overcome because they don’t have the funding to bridge this gap. Some universities offer an exposé scholarship for a few months, but not all universities do, and that is certainly the first hurdle that first-generation academics have to overcome when it comes to funding, because they have to take this exposé time for both a scholarship and an application. Ideally, there will be a position advertised somewhere that you can apply for, but of course there are simply not many of those.

Let’s say I’m listening to the podcast now, I’m just finishing my master’s degree, I’m thinking about doing a doctorate, and now I’m a little scared because I’m thinking, oh, how am I going to manage all this? Do you think it might also be a good idea to be strategic and start thinking about a Master’s thesis topic that I could expand into a PhD topic, perhaps even discussing it with my supervisor in advance if I already know that I want to go down this path? Simply to shorten the time it takes to write the exposé a little, because you’re already well versed in the topic.

Absolutely. That’s definitely one option. And something else you mentioned briefly just now, you said maybe I should just talk to my supervisor. And I think that’s the even more important point, because if you’re interested in doing a doctorate, I think it’s always worth just getting in touch and asking where there might be some start-up funding or an exposé scholarship, where there might be a parental leave replacement available, a position that is only advertised for a short time and that not many people apply for, but that I could perhaps use to get started somehow. So definitely engage in dialogue and ask questions, and then you may find more opportunities than there appear to be at first glance.

Nowadays, many doctoral candidates start with a specific form of funding, whether it be a research assistant position or a scholarship, and often assume that this will be sufficient for the entire duration of their doctoral studies. In practice, however, things often turn out differently. Funding and scholarships eventually run out, projects come to an end and, last but not least, doctoral programmes often take longer than planned or expected. In your experience, what does this mean for the doctoral process and especially for first-generation doctoral researchers?

Of course, this is always a very precarious situation that has to be resolved on an individual basis. There are things like completion grants, but I’ve heard some crazy stories from friends. People who have taken a break from their jobs to claim six months of unemployment benefits and then gone back to work, using this period of unemployment to write. Yes, there are really different ways of piecing together funding, going abroad again to get a foreign grant, to add more time.

This is of course especially true for first-generation academics, who may not have this security from their families. Not all first-generation academics lack financial security in their families, but many do, so that security is missing. And then, of course, it becomes difficult and always has to be solved individually. But even there, I believe there are always possibilities.

And yes, I know some who actually finished their doctorates while unemployed. But maybe it’s just worth it because you’ve made it and finished it.

Perhaps it’s important to reiterate what you just mentioned, namely to talk to others and ask them: How did you manage to finance five or six years of doctoral studies even though you may have only had a three-year contract or a scholarship that lasted three years? What different types of funding did you have? I think it’s also important to talk to people who have already completed their doctorates. One point you just mentioned is unemployment benefits. Would you like to say a little more about the consequences for unemployment benefits if you are now only financing yourself through a scholarship?

Exactly, as far as I know, the scholarship is not counted towards unemployment benefits. That means you are not entitled to unemployment benefit I. That is, of course, a consequence. So the 25 per cent position at the university is counted, but you can then consider what that means at 25 per cent.

It’s always a question of these positions, which are measured at 25, 50 or 75 per cent, and which you can sometimes increase or extend, and how that affects your unemployment benefits.

Yes, that’s also my understanding, that if you receive a scholarship, you don’t pay into the unemployment fund and then you don’t get anything out of it, and I think it’s also important to keep in mind that if you have a job, at least with a higher percentage of working hours, and you can calculate in advance whether that will be enough to live on or not, that you at least have the option of financing yourself temporarily with unemployment benefit [Editor’s note: unemployment benefit I] and simply have social security, which you don’t have with a scholarship [Editor’s note: only citizen’s income / basic income support applies here]. So I still think that’s important, perhaps also from the point of view of thinking early enough about what follow-up financing might look like.

Yes, for sure.

Now I want to tell you something that happened ten years ago, maybe even longer, but I still remember it really well. When I was doing my doctorate, I was friends with a doctoral student and I had a conversation with him that really bothered me at the time. He comes from a working-class family and told me that he found it extremely difficult to accept that unpaid work and overtime are often simply taken for granted in academia, regardless of whether it was conferences at the weekend, night work or unpaid teaching. Especially for people who come from families where work and pay are perhaps more closely linked, this can be quite a culture shock. How do you experience this? To what extent does this difference in the perception of work and performance play a role for first-generation doctoral researchers?

I still find it difficult that so much more is demanded of us. Whether it’s unpaid teaching or investing a lot of time in conferences that isn’t billed by the hour. Or the voluntary work that you still have to do on top of your doctoral scholarship, which is also good and important. But of course, you have to be able to afford this unpaid work somehow.

And I think that’s something that people with an academic background, for whom it may not be such a challenge, often fail to consider. But for someone who is a first-generation academic and perhaps also has care responsibilities, it is not so easy to always be able to do this unpaid work, which is virtually expected. And it is certainly also a structural problem in academia that it is simply common practice to expect so much unpaid work.

Thank you very much for these important additions. I am also familiar with the expectation that one will work significantly more than what is stated on paper. Sometimes, even with a 50 per cent position, 100 per cent work is expected. But I would also like to add that this can also be subject-specific, and there are certainly supervisors and subjects where it is common practice or where you don’t have to work more than what is stated on paper, perhaps just as an addition, so that not everyone listening is shocked, but so that people simply know that, okay, this can happen, but there are also other cases.

One initiative that promotes educational advancement for people from families without an academic background is ArbeiterKind.de. You have been involved there since 2016, if I am correctly informed. Take us back in time. How did you come to be involved there back then?

I actually became aware of the organisation through a lecture by Katja Urbatsch, the founder of ArbeiterKind, and during this lecture I kept having moments where I thought to myself, aha, ah yes, that’s me, that totally applies to me. And that really helped me to somehow reposition myself in my study experience and also in my family environment. Then, together with a fellow student, I decided that we would also start an ArbeiterKind group at the university we were attending. We set it up there, and I’ve been active in it ever since.

Perhaps not quite as intensively as at the beginning, when we actually founded the group. Now, with my doctorate and children, I am often involved in mentoring, responding to specific enquiries about doctorates, financing and scholarship advice. And there are two great formats at ArbeiterKind, especially for doctoral researchers. I am also active there.

One is the open meeting of the doctoral group, which you can attend once a month. But this doctoral group also exists in the online network beyond that, where you can simply ask any question in a very low-threshold way and without feeling completely stupid, and you’re sure to find someone there who has had this problem before and can help you.

The other one is not specifically for doctoral students, it’s the CoStudySpace, but it also helps me a lot because it’s a place where you can meet online and study together. And especially with a long-term project like a doctorate, I think it’s incredibly important that you’re not alone in this process. It’s also about exchange, but not only that. It’s also simply about working together and finding the motivation and perhaps also a little bit of obligation to actually sit down and work together.

And that’s with people who have the same experiences, who have the same family background, which makes the hurdle of perhaps going to a writing group at university or something like that much higher. And here in this protected space at ArbeiterKind, it’s totally possible and a really nice get-together, which is very helpful for me in particular and which I can only recommend to all first-generation academics.

If I wanted to participate, how would I go about it? What do I need to do to be part of it?

Just google ArbeiterKind and then register with the ArbeiterKind network. You will need to create an account there, but then you will find all the information you need, including all the groups that exist, including the group in your area that offers a monthly open meeting. Depending on your interests, you can then choose to join the doctoral group or select the CoStudySpace, and you will automatically be included once you have made your selection.

And since today’s topic is financing and money, I assume that everything is free of charge for participants.

Of course.

Perhaps for those who don’t know Katja Urbatsch, she is the founder of ArbeiterKind.de. And what I would be interested to know is, you said that you had heard her give a talk and that there were many moments when you could identify with what she was saying. Can you still remember what those moments were, when you thought, that’s exactly me, and recognised yourself in what she was saying?

At first, the title of the lecture confused me a bit, because I didn’t really see or understand myself as a working-class child. But during the lecture, I realised that the term “working-class child” has a much broader meaning and that many of the experiences described in the lecture were ones that I had also had. One of these was navigating university life, either with a sense of confidence or, in my case, without.

But it was also about how to put together my timetable and who I could ask if I didn’t know how to do it. Or even my first assignments. Who could proofread them? I didn’t have anyone in my family who had experience in this area or who could help me proofread assignments at that level.

And then I felt somehow understood and thought to myself, ah yes, this experience I’m having is really an experience. And I’m not alone in this. And those were two very important points for me. And that kind of carries through to my doctorate, that on the one hand you have this thought, is it just me? And it’s actually never just you. But that it’s also justified to have certain worries and thoughts, because as a first-generation academic you have different experiences or have these experiences with a different background than others.

And that’s exactly why this exchange, for example via ArbeiterKind, but of course also with a doctoral scholarship and its entire network, or even at the university as a research assistant, is so incredibly important, so that you can get through this long period of doctoral study well. And not just with a good grade, but also financially well and, ultimately, mentally healthy.

Yes, I would say mental health is at least as important. You already got to know ArbeiterKind.de during your studies. Did they also play a role in your decision to consider doing a doctorate after graduating?

In my case, actually not. But now, as a mentor, I find that questions keep coming up that are specifically tailored to doctoral studies, or where you can perhaps provide direct support and help proofread an exposé, so I would say that Arbeiterkind can definitely provide support in this area.

Looking back on your own experiences, what do you think would need to change structurally so that social background no longer plays a role when it comes to financing a doctorate and, by extension, who can afford to do a doctorate and consider embarking on one?

For me, these transitions are key. And these transitions are, of course, difficult for all scientists. But as I said, without this financial background and the serenity to endure these precarious transitions between master’s and doctoral studies, between different funding models, or between doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, it is simply not possible for many people. That is why there need to be more secure transitions or perhaps another form of scholarship that goes beyond this, in other words, more start-up funding, more exposé scholarships that somehow accompany these transitions, so that a great many people don’t simply drop out at this point because of this uncertainty, people who might otherwise be able to continue, but who simply cannot bridge and endure this period, and perhaps do not want to.

And this transitional scholarship, do you envisage it being specifically for first-generation doctoral students or for everyone in general?

Well, I think that would be useful for everyone, but for first-generation academics it would of course be even more important. That’s why I believe it’s important in principle that first-generation status is a criterion that plays a role. This also applies to applications and scholarships, depending on which scholarship provider I apply to, but it also plays a role in funding: who is actually applying? What kind of person is it? What kind of CV do they have? What kind of background? What kind of illnesses or care responsibilities do they have, or are they first-generation or not? If that were simply included in the assessment, then I believe it would be very valuable for first-generation academics and also very important in this process not to see being a first-generation academic as a flaw, but rather as a strength and something to be proud of, that you have made it this far with this family background and are not ashamed of it.

What advice would you give to someone from a non-academic family who wants to do a doctorate but is unsure whether it is financially feasible?

I find that a really difficult question, because in principle I would like to encourage everyone, but I also think it’s important to be aware of your limits and then say, hey, before this goes beyond your personal limits, so the question of whether I would take out a loan, for example, is a very individual one and is much more existential for first-generation academics than for other scientists. That’s why I don’t want to make a blanket statement, but would rather tailor my advice to the individual.

Is there anything you wish you had known earlier about scholarships, employment opportunities, and funding options for doctoral studies?

How important networks are. I think everyone knows that already. But you only really realise how important it is over time. So always stay in touch, always talk calmly about your own situation, because then opportunities often open up again because someone thinks of you. Especially with scholarships, always try, always keep trying. ‘They’re only human, too’ is another phrase we at ArbeiterKind always say to our students when they apply for university and scholarships. So definitely always give it a try.

And yes, in retrospect, everything looks pretty smooth on my CV now. But of course I know that it wasn’t all that smooth, but that it was always quite bumpy and uncertain in between. And I would like to tell myself to be a bit more relaxed, that everything will be fine. But of course that’s easy to say from today’s perspective, and I know that it wasn’t so easy for me to cope with at the time.

Thank you for your honesty and openness on this point. Dear Alina, to conclude, I have a few quick questions for you. Short questions, short answers. Just answer from the heart, whatever comes to mind first. Ready?

Ready.

Is there a book, podcast, YouTube channel or similar that you would recommend to other doctoral researchers?

„Frei geschrieben“ is a really great book. [Editor’s note: Alina is referring to the book „Frei geschrieben“ by Judith Wolfsberger]

What is the best way for you to unwind after a long day at work?

With my children and if they let me have some free time with yoga.

If you could give doctoral researchers just one piece of advice, what would it be?

Just keep going, you’ve got this.

What has been the best moment of your scientific career so far?

Oh, that’s a difficult one. I think it’s always the exchange. And when others say, wow, that’s exciting, and you’ve almost forgotten how exciting what you do actually is.

What do you wish for in the future of the sciences?

That there is a reform of the system of academia and that academia becomes more accessible.

Coffee or tea when writing?

Coffee.

And one last question: what would you have liked to have known at the beginning of your doctoral studies, regardless of whether it was related to financing or perhaps something else entirely?

That there will always be difficult phases, but also easy phases. And that it’s really about overcoming the difficult phases. And then it’s fun again.

Thank you, Alina. I am sure that many doctoral researchers can learn a lot from what you have shared, as can many who may be interested in pursuing a doctorate but are not yet sure whether they can finance the project or not.

Thank you very much Marlies.

Outro

In conversation with Alina Franziska Becker, it became clear how much the question of financing shapes the path to a doctorate and that it is often much more complex than one might initially think. The discussion focused on how different forms of financing influence everyday life and one’s own sense of security, and why exchange, networks and initiatives such as ArbeiterKind.de play such an important role here.

I found it particularly interesting how Alina showed that financial stability is not only an organisational issue for first-generation doctoral candidates, but also an emotional one. This is because it means security, belonging and, often, the opportunity to truly shape one’s research freely.

More insights into the many facets of doctoral studies can be found in the other episodes of the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin – both on the topic of first-generation doctoral candidates and on other exciting topics, such as good doctoral supervision. There are also episodes on the various phases of doctoral studies with lots of practical insights. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt, thank you for listening, and see you next time here on the DRS Podcast.

[Note: Your host for this episode was Dr. Marlies Klamt.]

Return to the Podcast episode here