Prof. Dr. Helene Kretzmer, professor for computational genomics and recipient of the DRS Supervision Award for outstanding PhD supervision, shares what really matters when it comes to good supervision: trust, clear communication, and flexibility in dealing with different work styles. She talks openly about her own experiences and challenges in academia and gives insights into how she juggles research and teaching. Plus: why mistakes matter – and why a healthy work-life balance is essential in science. 

HIGHLIGHTS

“Don’t be afraid to fail. Find your own passion, what you want to do and try things out. And then you will find the topic you’re curious about. And once you have this, you will be able to do great research on it. So, you know, you will grow into the scientific role.” 

“Failing itself is not the big problem. Because if we don’t fail, we didn’t try things out of the box. And I think that’s part of research, trying things that are not streamlined and have been often done before.” 

“An unhealthy relationship between supervisor and PhD student over an extended period of three or four years, where both sides are frustrated, is simply extremely painful.” 

Prof. Dr. Helene Kretzmer

Find useful links here.

INTRO

Welcome to the DRS podcast, the podcast for doctoral researchers at Freie Universität Berlin. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and today’s episode is all about one of the most important relationships in any doctoral journey, the relationship between PhD candidates and their supervisors. My guest is Professor Dr. Helene Kretzmer, who received the DRS Supervision Award for outstanding doctoral supervision, an award nominated by PhD researchers themselves. In this conversation, we explore what makes a great PhD supervisor, how to build a successful working relationship, and what both doctoral candidates and supervisors can do to make the doctoral journey a positive and productive experience. 
Professor Kretzmer shares her thoughts on why supervision isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach, how she adopts two different working styles, and why trust and open communication are essential for a successful PhD. We also talk about her personal experiences, how she found her way into academia, the defining moment that sparked her interest in research, and her perspective on work-life balance in academia. If you’re a PhD researcher looking for guidance, an aspiring professor wondering how to supervise doctoral candidates, or if you’re simply curious about what makes an excellent PhD experience, this episode is for you. Let’s get started. 

Interview

Welcome, Professor Kretzmer. It’s great to have you here today. Before we dive into the topic of good doctoral supervision, how would you introduce yourself, what do you do professionally, and what motivates you in your work? 

Thank you very much. So what I do in my general daily work, or the research that my group does, is quite interdisciplinary. And we’re pretty much at the intersection between bio and medical informatics. And we’re basically working with a variety of different tools of sequencing data, different layers of regulation, different methods, using, for example, single-cell and long-read sequencing. And yeah, we mix basically them with different types of computational strategies. And on the one hand, we’re then interested in understanding how the epigenome regulates health and disease cells. So, for example, how does a cancer cell differ from its benign counterpart? 
And on the other side, we’re a bit more translational. So, we try to utilize all the knowledge that we and others acquire to then develop new methods and models. So, for example, classifying tumour entities. And then by this, we try to integrate basically these two sides, basic and translational research, and our far-fetched aim would be then to improve patient care and improve disease diagnostics. And what drives me, I think, is this really interdisciplinary work where we work with a variety of different people. So clinicians, other bioinformaticians, informaticians, also clinicians and biologists. So basically working together, everyone brings their own type of expertise.  And all of that becomes, I think, quite powerful and then really an impact on the long stretch, at least we hope, on human beings and patients in care situations. 

That sounds very interesting, and I know that in your research you also work with PhD candidates and you recently won the DRS Supervision Award. Congratulations! Do you remember when you first heard about it? Where were you and how did you feel? 

Thank you very much. Yes, I was actually overwhelmed. So it was, it was very cute because I was sitting in the team meeting when the email came and we were basically wrapping up and with half an eye, I saw this email popping up with the headline, more or less stating that. And I didn’t want to react because I didn’t know really what was the remaining content of that email, but it had like kind of a gut feeling what it was about. So yeah, I was really touched because for me, it’s very important to have a research group that is happy and loves what they are doing.  And then getting such an incredibly amazing and nice and friendly feedback. Yeah, I think that really made my day and made me very happy. 

So when we’re looking at the relationships between doctoral candidates and supervisors, which I personally think are really important, how important do you think is a strong relationship between doctoral candidates on one side and their supervisors on the other side for a successful PhD? 

I think successful in terms of going through the PhD with being liking what you do and being happy about what you do and really feeling that you have fulfilled what you’re doing and then also continue maybe with this work or similar work. I think for this, for most of the people, it’s quite essential. So I think I would never have made it through my PhD when I would not have known that I would have been in an amazing group with a strong supervisor and that’s also the feeling that I have with my group and the people I supervise that for us it’s quite important that we know each other well enough that also if someone has a bad day one can basically take care and feature that in. And that you know that you can come to your supervisor with any problem, issue and also amazing and great news.  And you know, this person has a good relationship with you and understands you and react to it. And it’s not like a neutral person that gives remote information or not. 

So a very human approach, we could say. 

Yes, so I think for me the one fits all solution definitely doesn’t work. I like to figure out with everyone in the group, or with everyone at work actually, what the right type of interaction is. So some people just like to disappear for 10 days and be like, let me work and then I present. And then I think that’s the right approach for them and I’m happy to adapt to it. Others like to come in every day once or twice and just give quick updates and ask for feedback. And sometimes it also depends on the phase of the project. And I think most of the people, you know, if they’re in their safe zone and feel welcome and supported, they can do the best work that is possible. And that’s the state that I try to enhance and create. 

Now, you already said that the one fits all solution doesn’t exist. Do you still think that there are some key factors that contribute to a successful relationship between the doctoral researchers and their supervisors? 

Oh, yes. I think key factors, definitely. And I think this is about trust and also being emphatic about the other person and understanding their position and also their feelings and which type of pressure they sense at that moment. So I think in terms of the ingredients put together, this works basically in every situation and I would almost say it’s essential in any relationship. It’s just how to dose it and how much to use of which part and which station just depends on the person and the project. 

Now let’s take a look at your personal ideal doctoral candidate. Are there specific qualities that doctoral candidates should have to work well with you as a supervisor and who would be the right fit in your research group? 

I think for me what is relevant is someone is interested in the topic itself intrinsically and brings the right level of excitement. So I usually give a little bit of a speech at the beginning that I tell people that I’m not going to kind of carry them to the goal and that I’m not going to tell them how many hours they have to work or when they have to do what. I’m happy to support everyone and enable them but I will not micromanage or put up stringent timelines that they have to fulfill. So the self-drivenness I think is essential because I love my job a lot and I work with a lot of people that love what they do. And if someone actually does not want to work on a topic, I think this is creating a painful situation for both sides. And that’s nothing you can cover by, you know, pressuring people into certain parts of the work. So yeah, I think being highly motivated and self-driven and then being interested in the topic. And I think from that stage, we will agree on good terms how to work together. 

When you’re having interviews for research positions for PhD candidates, how do you make sure that people actually have this intrinsic motivation in the topic? Is it just the smile on their face or is there other things that you consider? 

I think it’s a good mixture of both sides probably. So it’s on the one side, I think it’s a lot of personal clicking. So I’ve hardly had the time that I met someone and was either not convinced in one or the other direction. So I believe into the gut feeling and sensing someone and getting a feeling that you get along well. And then finding the right project, because there are so many interesting things to work on. Not everyone needs to be interested in everything. So it’s getting well along with someone, feeling that they want to work on it, which usually correlates with someone approaching me, asking for a PhD position, having maybe read a paper, asking a few questions about certain things we do.  And then the next half is basically figuring out if they know what they would like to do. And if not, collecting enough data points basically to design something to get started, to give them the option to learn what they’re actually curious about. 

Many things of what you say, they touch on the fact that different people have different needs. Did you already encounter the situation that you had to adjust your approach as a supervisor? And if so, could you share an example? 

So yes, I had a few occurrences in that direction, let’s say. So I think usually when it’s about master or bachelor theses, I think the intrinsic motivation is sometimes, or the idea that people think that they want something is not as developed as for a PhD position. So with bachelor and master students, I had this a few times that they were really not that much self-driven as they stated at the beginning. And then I had to adjust in a way that I gave like smaller snippets of information and basically told them a bit more in which direction it goes.  But I think that’s a good learning example for them as well as for me, but especially for them to understand, okay, this is maybe not what I like. And I think that also reaches into the range of PhD students. And here I would say it’s not the student’s fault and neither the supervisor’s fault. Sometimes people don’t match. And I think at that stage it’s relevant to understand this early, because an unhealthy relationship between supervisor and PhD student over an extended period of three or four years, where both sides are frustrated, is simply extremely painful. So sensing this early and then rather seeing how to improve the situation, and that might include switching the group, is something that I, of course, don’t like to consider. But sometimes I think it helps both sides and improves the situation for everyone. 

And when would be the best moment to do so? Right in the beginning when you realize something is off? Or do you think it’s worth waiting a while? 

I think kind of a while. So usually, especially when you switch the country, the first few weeks might be simply different, and you might adjust to a new environment and everything. But then I would say within those first three to four months, you really sense if this is going to work out long term or not. And that’s also a timeframe where you can find options and search and also support the student by maybe finding a better option. 

What do you think doctoral candidates can do wrong in their collaboration with their supervisors? 

I think not being honest, at least in my experience, doesn’t work. So if you have the feeling, you know, you need to be a different person in the meeting and you cannot express what you actually think or feel, I think that’s a mistake because that means that the other person can also not adjust to you but maybe thinks everything is fine, everything is good and is not considering to change on their side. And I think for me it’s a matter of fairness that everyone is allowed to say I don’t like the following or I feel overwhelmed. And then it’s not about like, this is your fault or something, but work together to find a solution so that everyone gets again into the space where they can actually show that they are great researchers and proceed and grow. 

Yeah, definitely. Now let’s change direction a little bit and move to another topic. I would like to know what was your childhood dream? What did you want to be when you were a child? 

Yeah, that was for me a very constant dream. So I wanted to become a medical doctor. And I think I started with that dream really from really early childhood on that was very clear medical doctor it is. And it took quite a few years, actually, until Abitur, where I then started to realize that I found the knowledge you gain during this type of work and during the studies extremely interesting. But I actually never really wanted to work as a medical doctor, but wanted to do research in this direction. And yeah, that’s why I think also the perspective of my research group is a bit in that direction still. So it never stopped that this was a path I considered for a long time. 

So after you started studying at university, did you know pretty much right away that the academic career was the right fit for you or was it a defining moment, a moment where you thought, okay, I’m definitely going to stay in research because that’s what I love? 

Yeah, no, I think I was absolutely unsure what I wanted to do. So I studied biomathematics, so mainly mathematics with a bit of biology on top. And for a long term, I was actually not really sure what I wanted to do. So what I did was then going for a semester abroad, I went to New Zealand. And there in 2010, I worked the very first time with sequencing data. And that was incredibly fascinating for me. I figured out that you can actually read out the entire genomic context of a cell or content of a cell. And back then I thought, wow, now we can actually know everything about a cell and really understand how diseases arise and how things go wrong within a cell. Of course, it turned out that there are so many more layers that we couldn’t read out during that time and that we might be able to read out now, but still it’s way more complex than just sequencing. But that was for me a defining moment where I understood this is the type of research that I would like to do. And from then on, I was pretty sure that I would like to proceed with a PhD and also there see a bit what the next steps are. 

So you didn’t have a plan going ahead? You weren’t sure yet if you want to have a professorship one day or not? 

No, for a long time not. I think I during my PhD, I considered doing a postdoc simply because I was curious about what we were doing, but I was, I wouldn’t say afraid, but I had huge respect for the idea of actually running a group because that means that a lot of people are trusting me that I come up with cool ideas. How they can get started and then trust me that this will result in them having a PhD. And I found that this was, you know, it’s not only caring for me and my research and my career, but now taking over the responsibility for other people. This was something I did not consider during my PhD and it took a little while throughout my postdoc to actually grow into this role and understand that I like it a lot. 

That would have been my next question. Now that you have the role and the responsibility as well, how does it make you feel? 

Let’s say I did a relatively long postdoc and then slowly grow into the group leader role before I then started with a professor position. I had a lot of training time and also time to build up some confidence and also get the respective feedback from people I was working with. And now I enjoy working with a lot of excited young people, seeing how they grow, how their research starts from the beginning of the PhD and then develops throughout the time. So I think I’m in the happy place where I’m really doing what I like. And now I’m more confident that with the right motivation and the right team, the PhD for most of the people is an exciting and great time and not a scary and uncertain time. 

Let’s imagine I were one of your doctoral candidates and wanted to become a professor. What would you advise me to focus on? Or maybe you would also say, let yourself grow into it, allow yourself to grow into it. Or would you say there’s something I should prioritize, be it publications, networking or maybe teaching? 

I think there are hard and soft facts, basically. So I think on the soft side, I would say, don’t be afraid to fail. Find your own passion, what you want to do and try things out. And then you will find the topic you’re curious about. And once you have this, you will be able to do great research on it. So, you know, you will grow into the scientific role. And then, of course, these parts that are useful when you consider applying somewhere, which means, of course, papers count. I think that’s simply the type of money we deal with. But papers will fall into place if you do great research. So I think that part should grow over time. Then I would definitely say do some teaching because the role of a professor is not only supervising people and doing research, but the main part is about teaching. And if you don’t like it, neither you nor your students will enjoy the time where you are in the classroom. And I think that makes considerable parts of your life actually less enjoyable than they could be. Yeah, that’s why I would say teaching, testing that, seeing if you like it and how to become good at it is essential. 

Yeah, I totally agree. And I’m happy that you mentioned it because I think teaching is often frowned upon a bit or people don’t like it as much. They think it just comes with the job. But yeah, I think the same as you just said that in order to be happy and fulfilled and to make your students and PhD candidates happy as well, it’s really important to also like that part of your job as a professor. 

And I think it can actually be really fun. So I think if you do an exciting lecture, often the questions you get are pretty good questions and also coming from different angles than you were thinking about it. And sometimes you’re like, this is actually a really good idea. I haven’t thought about it. And also seeing people, you know, grow into the topic and become more interested about the parts you do. For me, that pays a lot back if you have an excited class there. Of course, it’s also exhausting if you talk straight for 90 minutes, that is exhausting physically. But for me, it pays back a lot to see that people are interested in what you’re doing and even consider pursuing that path of research. 

Now looking back at your own PhD, what were the biggest challenges you faced and what, or maybe also who, helped you to overcome them? 

I think for my PhD, some big challenges were that it was part of a larger consortium. So there were a lot of stakeholders and expectations. So I think my major challenge was basically me myself, because I needed to find my way of working in a larger group where everyone needed something and also gaining confidence that I was doing things correct and right. And I think the part that was a challenge was also helping me to overcome because I met a great number of people that really were super supportive and taught me a lot. And with them, I learned that I really like the type of interdisciplinary joint research, because once the knowledge of different expert domains comes together, you can learn way more about a disease or a cell state than you could do on your own. 

You said that you had to find your own way of working. I’m very curious. What is your own way of working? What did you find? 

I think my way of working is, first of all, seeing the other side and understanding their way of thinking and also their approaches and trying to find a good way of communication, because in my opinion, communication is really the key to most of the things. There are so many options how misunderstandings can happen, especially when you come from different domains, where you sometimes almost speak different types of languages. So the way a clinician phrases something, the bioinformatician might not understand at all, and the other way around. And I think all domains have things that are easy and work well, but all domains also have challenges. And if we do not understand the other side, it’s hard to really build integrative work. 

I agree. Definitely. By the means of communication, a lot of misunderstandings can be discovered and avoided or solved. Now, another thing you said, which I also find very interesting, is that you had to gain confidence to do the things I think you said correctly and right. And I think that’s very interesting because in my experience, a lot of PhD candidates lack confidence which also might be due to experiences they had, a lot of criticism maybe. Do you have any tips for what people in a similar position could do to gain confidence?  

I think finding a mentor or someone you trust helps a lot because your mentor doesn’t need to be always your supervisor because your supervisor has to have a look at the science and also be more critical. But if you have a mentor, that person might simply help you to explain less emotional both sides. And I think for me, usually positive reinforcement works quite well. So I don’t work that well with people just saying this and this is bad. So I think finding a good balance between, of course, criticizing and the friendly and nice way of things go wrong, because ignoring them usually doesn’t help. But on the other side, also telling people if they did something good and correct, so that they can build confidence on what they are doing. And learn to balance also the emotions on if they did something wrong. Because, you know, I think failing itself is not the big problem. Because if we don’t fail, we didn’t try things out of the box. And I think that’s part of research, trying things that are not streamlined and have been often done before. So I think supporting people on being allowed to fail and helping them then to get on a path where they can proceed. That’s how I think I myself build confidence on things. And I have the feeling that also works for a few other people. 

Do you think that’s sometimes lacking in the academic field that people get encouraged, that they also get encouraged to make mistakes and learn from them? 

I think it’s kind of also a natural way, especially if there’s a lot of pressure, that it’s easy to say, let’s not do any extra rounds, let’s not try something that is high risk. I can see how this sometimes is also like a, I wouldn’t say survival strategy, but a strategy that you need to do to get through harsh times. But for me, that’s where research starts, where it becomes interesting to try new things. So it wouldn’t be the type of research that I would like to do. 

And you would miss out probably in a lot of interesting stuff. 

Yeah, I mean, everything, of course, you know, if you don’t do high risk, you might be quicker at the goal that you might have put. The question is, is this the best goal that you could have reached? And I think balancing this a bit, of course, you cannot, like do only high risk and fail throughout five years, because this will also need to lead somewhere, right? So I think finding the fine balance between being able to try new things and be allowed to fail and not … You know, if a student fails on something, you don’t need to tell them that they did a bad job. They are frustrated themselves, right? So it’s not that you need to like negatively enhance this feeling because no one likes to fail anyway. So I think finding a good balance between trying out new things with the risk of failing, but then also picking up the person again and helping them to recover and get to the next steps. I think that’s the challenge, but also if it works, it comes with a lot of reward. 

I think it became very obvious during the course of this interview that you’re very passionate about your job, about research. When your job is also your passion, it can be easy for working hours to spiral out of control. How do you maintain a healthy work-life balance? Or maybe that’s also something you’re still working on. 

I think the healthy work-life balance is first of all probably defined for everyone in their own way. And what I try to usually communicate is that there are phases of more speed, more work, where you have a high phase, where something is more urgent. And I think this is good to learn to tolerate them and actually kind of maybe also to enjoy them. But I think for a healthy work-life balance, we need also the down faces on the other side, you know, where you work less, where you recover from the sprint that you have just done. And I think by this, for me, it doesn’t look like, you know, a flat line where I have every time the same or every day the same work-life balance throughout a week or a month or a year. But there are phases where you do more and then are phases that you do less. And I think I try to balance that a bit in a way that every time I’m excited, of course, I have no problems for myself to say, okay, I’m working more during this time, or I’m spending more time on it. But then also trying to find the phases, you know, where you do more maintenance, and balance these two sides. 

Do you think those phases with less work, they’re naturally integrated into the course of academia or is that something you actually have to make sure that it’s happening and that there are those phases with lower work pressure as well? 

I think it’s both. So I think for the students, it’s often something the supervisor needs to enforce at some point. Because it’s easy to keep someone in the high phase. But usually, you know, if you run a sprint, you can’t do six sprints in a row over the distance of a marathon, because, you know, this is not how you can balance energy. So I think for people that are easy to be excited and to be in the sprint, it also needs someone taking care to make sure they stay as healthy as it should be. I have to admit for myself, I’m less good in it, but I also don’t feel like I’m suffering from that at the moment. So I will find my phases, but yeah. 

Professor Kretzmer, to wrap it up, let’s do a few quick questions, just short and spontaneous answers. It’s just a series of four or five questions I have for you. And I would ask you to just quickly answer with one word or it could be five words as well, but just a really quick and spontaneous answer.

Are you someone who likes to plan ahead or do you prefer to take things as they come? 

I like to plan ahead, but I know this is not always possible. 

In an ideal world, how many doctoral candidates would you like to supervise at the same time?  

Four. 

What do you enjoy most about leading a research group?  

The joint work and also celebrating together the successes. 

Do you have a role model in academia or in doctoral supervision? 

Actually not. 

Who is more responsible for a good relationship, the supervisor or the PhD candidate? 

The supervisor. 

Because? 

Because the supervisor has way more information on most of the things, is way longer in the game and hopefully already, let’s say, emotionally more stable and experienced in doing research together. 

And they also hold more power in the hierarchy of the university?

Absolutely, yes. 

Is there anything else you would like to share with doctoral candidates, maybe also with other supervisors? 

I think for doctoral candidates is mainly find a place where you think you can do great research, where you feel understood. And yeah, I would almost say happy. And then the research will fall into place. 

Thank you so much for this conversation. It was very inspiring to hear about your experiences. Thank you so much for your time. 

Thank you very much. 

OUTRO

That was such an insightful conversation with Professor Dr. Helene Kretzmer, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. We covered so much from the key principles of good supervision to practical advice for doctoral candidates, career planning for future professors, and even the role of failure and work-life balance in academia. One key takeaway? A strong PhD supervisor relationship isn’t just about research. It’s built on trust, communication, and understanding different working styles. 

If you’d like to learn more about the DRS Supervision Award and past awardees, visit the Dahlem Research School podcast website. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to check out our other interviews with supervisor award wins, and discussions on key topics in the doctoral journey. This was Dr. Marlies Klamt for the DRS podcast, the podcast of Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join us again for our upcoming episodes. 

Prof. Dr. Martin Lücke, professor for historical education at the Free University of Berlin, talks about the challenges and opportunities for first-generation doctoral researchers. In this interview he discusses the world of German academia and shares his experience in navigating this world as a first generation academic.

Highlights

„… 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.“

„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.“

Prof. Dr. Martin Lücke, professor of historical education at Freie Universität Berlin and first generation academic

Note: This interview was conducted in German. The following translation is an automatic translation that was corrected for clarity.

Links

Find useful links on foundations that can support you during your doctorate and much more 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.

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

Stefan Skupien, co-ordinator  for Open Science of the Berlin University Alliance, discusses the value of Open Science and accessibility of scientific products both to academic and non-academic actors. During the interview he explains what Open Science is and how it could be used by new doctoral researchers while working on their thesis.

Highlights

„Science as knowledge and knowledge of society should be open to society, and everyone should be able to use it“

„(…) it’s just pragmatic to share research results to others, because then they can use it and makes it to get better science“

Stefan Skupien, coordinator for Open Science of the Berlin University Alliance

Transcript

Welcome to the podcast. I would love to have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. I am Stephan Skupien. I am the scientific coordinator for Open Science of the Berlin University Alliance, and I work at the Center for Open and Responsible Research that is part of the Berlin University Alliance. As you perhaps know, the Berlin University Alliance is a new project of an alliance that’s constituted of the Freie University, Humboldt University, TechUniversity and our University Medicine Hospital Charité. And I am responsible for the topic Open Science, working closely together with colleagues who work on research integrity on good scientific practice. And we developed a cluster of activities that I will be happy to speak about yes.

So, my first question for you is what is open science? What maybe I’m sure a lot of most of our listeners have heard of open science before, but you could maybe give us a brief overview so that we’re all on the same page. What do you mean by open science?

We mean by open science, basically a movement of researchers and others who want to let me start over. Okay. So basically, by open science, we mean a movement that emphasizes the value of accessibility of scientific products. Mostly scientific products that are financed by public funds. So, there are several arguments for open science. There was one very interesting study done about 10 years ago and the authors tried to cluster different approaches to open science calling it schools of thoughts about open science. And one would for example, be a pragmatic school. What you find maybe in some fields of research and climate science or in geological science or in computer science is that it’s just pragmatic to share research results to others, because then they can use it and makes it to get better science. Another one would be a democratic argument is that. Science as knowledge and knowledge of society should be open to society, and everyone should be able to use it. You also have the moral argument, or the ethical argument is to say that you’re obliged to open your research because it’s funded by us as scientists.

So, there are different schools out there with how you can justify open science. It’s also an international movement. It’s carried on by several actors especially among research funders lately. But also, the UNESCO recommendations on open science are a document of reference, and they include very several practices by open science, we try to cover the whole research cycle from the input of ideas to the output of research results. And we try to understand open science also as a bundle of principles and the principle that we emphasize in our mission statement are inclusion and cooperation as one set of principles. Then transparency, re-usability, accessibility. And validation or so, yes, those are like, try to always bring forwards and strengthen through our activities. And they cover the whole research cycle, and they also affect a lot of other aspects of the research community.

Thank you. Excellent. If I am a doctoral student and I’m thinking about open science or not open science, what would you say the benefit is of doing open science versus maybe the alternative where I’m not doing open science why should this be interesting to me or why should I get excited about it?

That’s a very good question. So, I see two major benefits. The one is it improves your own science your own scientific work. And the other one, it helps you to be in contact with the scientific community, but also with any other user outside of the scientific community. I am myself a social scientist by training. But now in my work, I have come in contact with a lot of different disciplines and some disciplines, for example it’s very common that you being given a problem or puzzle by someone or by your supervisor or study. And they say could you just replicate the study just to see whether it works or how does it work?

So, you would want to have access to protocols. You would have wanted access to the data so that you can replicate it. And here we come to the inner academic aspect of open science is that more to at least accessibility to good research results or to good documented research result helps you to improve science. And in general, because it improves the quality of science there have been some crisis and some disciplines replication crisis and psychology, but also some of our life science experts say that if there would be more openness, we would save a lot of time to develop medications. For a and we could plan our studies better.

So, it, and the other thing is that many of the researchers want by themselves to solve also problems that are posed by society, like we call it grand challenges and individual university alliance where you have to work together with non-academic actors. And if you have a good documented and accessible research results, be it like publications or data, then you can share it easily with other actors like NGOs, civil society, administration, industry, and others to solve societal problems.

Yes, those are the two major aspects I see are the benefits. And of course, you learn a lot, you take a lot of skills that you can apply in other fields as well.

It’s really an interesting point. You said, skills you can take in other fields. It sounds doctoral researchers who are involved in open science are learning how to communicate with people that are not just in science, but also outside of science. Did I understand that correctly?

It can be one aspect of so that’s where the overlap often science comes with science communication. But some of the for example, a lot of people talk about research data at the moment, and it’s very tedious work to prepare. And it’s how you produce in physics you produce software that is specifically designed for your own research question. And then maybe you leave the department because you have a job, and you don’t work on your thesis any longer. If you document the software level and you leave it at your institute where you did your PhD, then someone else can actually work well with it. And that is at the moment that documentation and where to keep it is still not embedded, but of course it’s a lot of work. And takes more time to actually have good quality documentation of research results. But it can, it’s of course still linked to the benefits that I talked about earlier.

So, my next question is say that I really am interested in working. Openly having this open science approach in my doctoral thesis and my P. I. is sceptical. What are some of the challenges that I might face there? How might I navigate that? That discussion with my PR with my supervisor to get them on board and more excited, especially maybe a generation of supervisors who haven’t had that much experience with open science.

Then that’s also a very good question. And I can recommend that is to look into the practices of your research culture and see if you meet others at conferences and who and find. Allies who already have good practice in in open science practices documenting research data or publishing preprints in fields where preprints are not yet. That often you used like in the humanities, for example so you could find examples and make an argument that it’s already been used, and it’s led to these benefits and we should use it as well. Of course, very often the supervisor is also the one who has an overview of the field and who knows that you have to work.

On this topic now to get to the next step. And it’s very often a time question. But I guess there are a lot of arguments also within research cultures or disciplines that you could use to talk to your supervisor about what you could to, for example, publish a preprint or pre-register a study in a field where it hasn’t been done before. For example, the German Association for Psychology they have an open science working group and they try to set standards for the whole field. That’s psychology, but you will also find similar working groups in other fields. Where it’s not common to publish preprints or pre-register or to put your metadata in a very high qualified documentation somewhere. But yeah, that’s what would be my advice.

Thank you. So, at the beginning, you mentioned a little bit about what the Berlin University Alliance does and what you do to support open science. And I want to come back to that. And just hear a little bit more about maybe what does the Berlin University align to? What do you specifically do to support researchers and maybe to support doctoral researchers in the open science process?

The Berlin University Alliance was founded by the four institutions that I mentioned, and all of these four institutions already have high levels of expertise and research integrity questions and good scientific practice and providing open access infrastructures, for example, for publications. And we build on these and the idea of the Berlin University Alliance is to create a, like a kind of a common ground where we can exchange, where we can use synergies of our approaches and where we could add. If there’s a complimentary issue at Freie University and at Humboldt University, you could meet, for example, and could use the resources of the other partner. Specifically, we support trainings you will find on our website, you will find each, for each semester, you will find a list of courses that we collect from all partners and where we make sure that we also say that it’s open to others. Where, for example, if you want to have a general introduction into research data management. You could go to Freie University if at your institution at Humboldt University, there’s nothing available at the moment. So, this is one opportunity, for example, but there are also other courses on open science practices. And we also established a master’s course, which could also be interesting for PhD students if you are in need of credits or general overview about how science works. And there we talk a lot about research integrity and open science, and we try to embed it in coursework for students. So training is one very important thing.

Then the other one is where you could benefit is in our networking activities. We have regular meetings where we present case studies of open science and research integrity. We can also invite you to apply for our fellowship program that is for students and also doctoral students who are interested in either inviting guests. Or going out to some institutions where some open science practice is very frequently used and you want to learn from it. So that’s this mobility team you can use as, and we provide information about open science in Berlin monitoring it to some extent, the Berlin science survey will give you also a good set of arguments for discussing open science in your institute or with your supervisor by providing arguments, for example, about the value of open science seen by the scientific community in general, or where you where it’s just a need to improve the support system for open science lately. And that I would say in this podcast as well, if you’re interested in, and if your contract, It’s long enough we established an ambassador program, which is also open to doctoral students and there you will get training, you will get a small fund for organizing events yourself, and you can showcase your own work in open science and you will be able to network with colleagues from different disciplines across the Alliance and across Berlin.

That’s also open to doctoral students. We will send out the next call in March next or next year, so 2025. And you are invited to become open science ambassadors for your faculty. But you can also contact us already now if you want to contribute to the activities of the ambassadors that will work during the next year at doing this year 2024-25.

Was that okay? Do you want to know more about it, Amanda? Should I get more of what we do?

Yeah, that’s perfect. Yeah, that would be wonderful.

I was talking that there’s already a lot of expertise within the universities, for example the technical university has a very strong emphasis on transdisciplinarity that including non-academic actors in the formulation of research question and into the research. And they provide some services to organize such research that you can also access and they have a team, a dedicated team that is supported by the Berlin University Alliance, but works in and also at Technical University which you can use to open your research and also as a doctoral student. And we have a funded project in the digital humanities, where we could link you to, to the researchers either in engineering or digital humanities, where you could find also inspiration, new methods. Also, there is for, also for doctoral students the Crest Center for responsible research at Charité. They are organizing an annual summer school and open science at the Oxford-Berlin summer school, which you can also apply for and attend, where you will be given insight into a lot of specific technical questions, but also in overall general discussions.

What do you think? So, if I we’re thinking about whether or not I want to do open science. I have all these cool resources. I can reach out and maybe learn a little bit more about it, get involved with it. But maybe I’m still a little bit uncertain. What do you think if, say I’m a doctoral student today how does getting involved in open science help me in my research career? So, a lot of the benefits we talked about, or you talked about so far are about, for science, for society. What about if I say, okay, I really want to be successful. I want to stay in science, or maybe I want to go into industry, but I want to, stay in research. What is the benefit of getting involved in open science for me as an individual right now when I think about my future.

I said earlier that Open Science is a movement that’s carried by a very different set of actors, like individuals, institutions, and there you will find first examples of how far you can get if you apply open science principles. If you learn certain techniques that would allow the transparency and reusability and validation of your research results, which makes your own research better, there are within the practices of publishing preprints or publishing diamond open access, which means that there’s no barrier to at all that you don’t have to pay. And the reader doesn’t have to pay. That means diamond open access also increases your reach. We could also say that publishing open access at all increases your citation, which then again increases the response to your research. And you get in contact with new, maybe interesting research questions. So content wise, it improves the thing that you want to do the thing that you want to study and the work around it. And you, as I said earlier, you learn a whole lot of new skills. And Open Science is also driven by the technical advance. The whole accessibility is fostered by the digitalization of research.

And it’s maybe you could understand Open Science as an adaptation process to these new digital tools that are part of our research anyway and making it easier to access large data sets. You learn a lot of skills about programming, for example, in some disciplines, or you learn skill that you can then later transfer to others to other areas in your career, also apply to other methods and things just because open science is very much driven by the new tech, the tools available.

Thirdly, there are funders at the moment major funders also who expect you, if you write a grant proposal to say something about your open science practice. And the better you can explain your open science practice, going beyond okay, I publish open access because I have access to the financial funds of my university library gives you thumbs up or gives you an advantage to others. We don’t yet apply open science principle as profoundly as you would do after your PhD. If there are changes not so much in Germany, but in other international funders like the EU, that they really look at the open science section that you have to fill in and grant proposals. And it’s not just a nice to have, but it’s also giving you points in the overall Judgment of your grand proposal.

So, it’s also giving you skills and experience to showcase in grand proposals and in future research. Additionally, within this movement, there are several initiatives taking up in trying to think about how we can change or how we can alter the whole evaluation system of individual researchers trying to get away from publications and high citation impact. To more, to other diverse products. And then it could be that in the future, that some universities that are interesting for you that are a good spot to, to be because you would learn, you could apply because they have an open science policy, and they are very visible in the open science community.

You could say that I already did that, this and this with my own research. So, I’m very, keen to also expand my open science knowledge. You could also apply with more reasons to this place on the ground that you share the values of open science, the same universities and funders and public administration actors are thinking about how to get away from the focus on publication would also mean that you’re free to present other results.

As I said earlier, tedious work is necessary to prepare the documentation of research data. And that work is still not as much recognized as publishing an article or doing what they in life sciences say it’s very much needed is why is why are so, few people doing public why let me start over. As in the life sciences, that’s a big issue to publish negative results meaning that you follow the hypothesis, but it didn’t come out as you expected. And that itself is also a result for the overall scientific knowledge generation, but it’s not being incentivized to publish negative results because that’s okay, it didn’t work.

But if we shift away from the positive publication output would focus on Oxford journals or nature journals hit to other products of science, including negative result publications or taking care of repositories or being editors in diamond open access journals. In smaller settings will allow you to present yourself in a more diverse way than usually your career is being portrayed at the moment. And that again could lead to better research quality all over that if we have these very negative impacts. Be they intended on unattended to publish as much as possible. And then you start publishing in yeah in ways that are not conducive for the whole enterprise of producing scientific knowledge, like salami tactics or others actors for maybe not equipped science systems, let’s say in in countries such as Ghana or Ivory coast and others where they don’t have the funds to publish in Oxford journals open access for 3000 euros you could help to generate infrastructures that they could use that are equally recognized and your field with diamond open access, so that they don’t have to have another barrier. Previously, they couldn’t read the research because it was too expensive to buy subscriptions. And now it’s a barrier to publish research and to be visible in the system by having to pay for gold open access, for example. So, your work and your investment in your individual investment in open science. Values and practices also help others and that again comes back to you as a positive effect. I assume.

Thank you. So, I have I have a question. So, the second to last question would be what haven’t I asked you? So, is there something that you really want to share with the listeners of our podcast that you think they need to know, maybe about, about your work or about open science in general, about the Berlin University Alliance? What haven’t I asked you that you think we should hear?

At the moment I could use this spot to encourage you to just reach out either to us or to any of our colleagues at Berlin University Alliance, because many of the topics can relate to open science and research integrity. I mentioned the transdisciplinary approach at technical universities but also, we are in close contact with our colleagues from the international offices who having who are organizing a networking and trainings also for organizing research with researchers from less advantaged science systems and they also touch on the topic of open science. So, I would like to encourage you to just reach out if you have a question and use the Berlin science survey as an in your thinking about open science. You can also join several networks in Berlin. We have a map on our website. We’re trying to map the open science activities so that you can just join them.

Or if you have, if you know of a working group on open science in your research culture specific or in the disciplinary groups just reach out to them because very often they can give you a very specific information about how to deal with Open science or publishing your data or reusing data or doing replication studies I assume this is something that you will learn at least doing your doctoral studies anyway, but we also try to. Bring it into teaching much further even bachelor or master studies. So, if you want to teach open science, please also reach out to us in your courses, we can think about providing content or think about providing some sort of material either, either using what’s already out there, there’s an open science online master’s course. I hope I say it right. But and that can be used as a resource also for your teaching and that will bring you again into very fruitful discussions with students about the value and the benefits of open science. Otherwise no, I don’t think I, we forgot any major question.

So, I have one more question and maybe you can decide if you have an answer, it’s great if you don’t. We usually ask people in the podcast; we like to ask people who’ve done a PhD or done a doctorate. If you could go back to the beginning of your doctoral studies, knowing what you know now, maybe about open science or just in general, your experience in the work that you’re doing now what advice would you give yourself if you could go back to the beginning of your, meet yourself at the first day of your research? What would you tell yourself and what guidance would you give yourself for the doctoral process?

In general, or focused on open science?

You can decide.

I guess I would also think about applying open science principles more constantly and or at all publishing my research data, which was text which was copied from libraries in Ghana. And I could have transcribed the text better and shared it with my Ghanaian colleagues. So, sharing with the research partner would be like one, one thing I would advise myself.

The other more general thing is that writing consistently or writing frequently and using like different methods that are available since already a long time. For example, experimenting with what we call in German Zettelkasten. It’s a method to structure knowledge in a way that it can be reused at the end. And then also instead of writing only like in the second half of the PhD. So, those are two things I would advise myself.

And the third one is I had the privilege I was very lucky to be in a graduate school that was interdisciplinary, and I learned a lot from my colleagues. From the philosophy side, from the legal from the law side and from the historical side. And that was very fruitful for my own thinking. So, if you’re not in an interdisciplinary setting, which I doubt because I get the many interdisciplinary credits called at the moment. Just yeah, look out for other disciplines and follow their discussions. Even if you’re interested in natural sciences or in life sciences, because that is always a broadening of the horizon that can eventually lead you to new ideas transfer of metaphors of concepts of theories to your own thinking. And if I advise myself on the first day of the of starting the PhD, it’s yeah, use this source of the knowledge of the other disciplines by default.

Thank you very much. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. And also, for the information on open science. And we will link to many of the things that you mentioned in the podcast website. So, if you are looking at this on the website, you can find all the links below and please feel free to reach out if you have any other questions about, about open science at the Berlin University Alliance. So, thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

This interview was conducted by our trainer and co-host of the podcast, Amanda Wichert

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

Highlights

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

Maren Vogel, representative of the doctoral council at FUB

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you a lot for having me.

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

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

Audio

Download or listen to the audio version of the podcast here.

Links

Find useful links on managing „crises“ during your doctorate here.

transcripT

The interview is held in German, the following transcript is translated.

INTRO

Welcome to the podcast of the Dahlem Research School, where today you can expect an interview with Christine Eßmann-Stern, the Women’s Representative and Gender Equality Officer at one of the departments of Freie Universität Berlin.

I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and I’ll be your host for today’s episode.

To give you an idea of what to expect from this episode, I would like to give you a brief summary in advance. My interview partner Christine Eßmann-Stern shares exciting and sometimes very humbling experiences from her everyday life as a decentralized women’s representative and gender equality officer with us. We talked in particular detail about the abuse of power by superiors, as this is one of the most common reasons why doctoral students turn to her.

We also talk about what she thinks can be done to ensure that there is less abuse of power on the part of professors and leaders of working groups.

Ms. Eßmann-Stern explains what usually happens after someone has contacted her, why she doesn’t always speak or can’t speak to the heads of the working groups and what consequences you can and can’t expect if you contact her.

It turned out to be a very informative interview, which can be encouraging, but also shows where the academic system can still be upgraded to ensure more justice and fairness in science.

And I don’t want to say any more in advance, but we’ll start directly with the interview.

INTERVIEW

Welcome to the podcast, Ms. Essmann-Stern. Could you please just briefly introduce yourself so that our listeners know who they are dealing with today?

Yes, with pleasure. My name is Christine Essmann-Stern. I am the decentralized Women’s representive and Gender Equality Officer at Freie Universität in the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy.

As you have just said, you are the department’s Women’s Representative and Gender Equality Officer. What is the most common issue that people approach you with in this role?

Abuse of power is definitely at the top of the list. This means that academic staff and postdocs are discriminated against, stalked and bullied by their superiors as a result of abuse of power.

You’ve already mentioned a few examples, such as stalking or discrimination. But what exactly is abuse of power?

Research assistants and postdocs are dependent on the head of the working group. This means that doctoral researchers are dependent on evaluations and are sometimes put under pressure. In other words, they are told that if you don’t do this and that, you won’t get these and those benefits. It goes as far as shouting at them, putting them under pressure by saying that if you don’t do this or that, then I will no longer support your project and you can do it all on your own.
This also concerns vacation, which everyone is entitled to, including doctoral candidates and postdocs. They’ll be told, if you want to apply for a leave, it’s not possible, our project must continue. But the fact is, you have the right to take leave. This is recreational leave. You don’t have to say why you’re taking this leave. But the AG leaders sometimes simply refuse, even though you are entitled to it.

Now you’ve just said that the head of the working group says, for example, if my doctoral researcher doesn’t do as I say, then I won’t help them any more and I won’t support them any more. What is it that they might be more or less forced to do ?

A lot of working group leaders don’t get on with their doctoral researchers expressing their own opinion. There you can find a lot of pressure. There are so many different problems that I learn about. Every employee is entitled to turn to me if, for example, they feel discriminated against or are constantly being shouted at. And if that happens and the person comes to me, then I first listen to them, try to advise them and then, with the consent of the person who comes to me, I contact the head of the working group.

When I do that, the hammer usually comes down immediately afterwards. For example the head of the working group saying that there’s someone here who has betrayed me. Everything is anonymous, which means that the AG leader doesn’t know who was with me. I also just say that I’ve heard that…
Of course, they keep asking who it was, even though they know it’s confidential, and that I don’t have to tell them. Then a team meeting is held in the working group and then the leaders might say, that someone betrayed them, and they could have come forward, and as long as the person who did it hasn’t been found, they won’t support the doctoral researchers any more.

It is very profound, because when doctoral researchers come to work with us, the supervisor enters into a contract with them. This means that they sign up to being a doctoral supervisor and they have to continue to support these people. And people forget that it is the right of every employee, i.e. every member of staff, to turn to me. And it’s always very difficult to criticize the AG leader, because they often misunderstand or do not want to understand. There’s also a lot of narcissism involved because, of course, many AG leaders think they are doing everything right. But if they don’t listen to what I say…
After all, they’re not slaves, they’re employees, for whom the head of the working group also has a duty of care. And that is often forgotten. And a lot of people sit with me crying because they just don’t know what to do.

Most of those who have these problems are undergoing psychological treatment because they usually come too late. Either because they don’t know that we exist or what we are there for. We don’t just sign contracts as decentralized Women’s Representative and and Gender Equality Officers, we also try to solve problems and concerns, to negotiate, to discuss things with people, preferably together. But the is often the issue of fear involved and they do not want that.

So it’s a difficult thing that I do, but I often have a good feeling when it turns out well. And that also makes me happy when someone comes up to me and says that everything worked out wonderfully, that my working group leader is completely different. They understood the problem. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen that often. I try to move people if it’s no longer working at all in this working group. I then sit down with the administrative management or the Office of Faculty Recruitment and Appointment Strategy directly under the Executive Board and say, well, we have this and that problem and we have to move this or that person on.

You have already touched on many, many different topics that I would like to go into them a little more deeper. First of all, let’s go back to the situation you’ve just described. Let’s assume that I really do have a professor sitting in front of me who says in the team meeting that as long as I haven’t found the person who has betrayed me here, based on his feelings, I won’t supervise anyone else here. That’s basically a refusal to work on the part of the professor. And if this happened in front of witnesses, as was the case in the example you described, is it still acceptable for the university to allow such a person to remain in their position?

Not really. It’s a very big problem as far as university lecturers are concerned. I can talk about the problems, I can pass them on, but there are usually no consequences. And that’s actually what bothers us all decentralized Women’s Representatives at the FU. We can try, if we get permission from the person concerned, to talk to them, to the heads of the working groups. We can pass it on to the administrative management, but nothing happens. In other words, nothing happens from the top. Of course, you could also go straight to the Executive Board, to the HR department.

It’s just that I’m only doing this internally for the time being, i.e. within our department. I also want it to stay there, I don’t want it to be passed on to the staff council or the HR department. That’s why I actually try to do everything I can beforehand to ensure that we sort it out internally in our department. Unfortunately, usually not much happens. The administrative management may talk to the person, the university lecturer. But there are no consequences. And I think that in such a case of refusal to work, as you said, he has entered into a contract with the doctoral candidate, he has had the doctoral reseracher employed and has agreed to be the doctoral supervisor. Then this person must supervise the doctoral candidate. And I also consider that a refusal to work.

And I always think that if it were any other employee, we would have already received something from HR, a warning or I don’t know what. In other words, there have to be consequences for such cases. And unfortunately, they are very, very rare. I have a lot of conversations with university lecturers, especially with controversial working groups, where I know there are often fires. But I don’t get anywhere because this narcissism gets to me. People don’t realize that they make mistakes themselves. This self-reflection, what am I doing, do I need to change something, that doesn’t happen, instead I’m always being told that I’m doing everything right here, that my work group is doing well. Apparently not, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people coming to me. And of course I’m very perceptive when several people come from a working group. Then there’s something to it.

I listen to both sides. But when four people or so come from the working group and say, well, our working group management does this and does that and I have minutes of their discussions then also emailed to me. Then I know that something is wrong. And that means we have to do something to change it. That’s a very important story. That’s why I’m also in favor of every university lecturer, whether they’re long-established or newly appointed and will be leading a working group, getting some kind of coaching or attend a workshop beforehand. How do I lead a AG? What are my duties? What are my rights? Also administrative matters, which is also very important.
As I said, it does not concern all university lecturers , but there are some where the staff keeps coming back and saying that something is wrong here. So there must be consequences also for university lecturers. And there has to be a workshop or whatever, because I have to get a driver’s license if I drive a car. I also have to be trained to lead a AG.… I’m a leader, I have a responsibility, a duty of care, so I have to be trained in advance. How do I deal with it? What do I do? That’s actually what I would like to achieve.

I think that’s a great idea, also mandatory for new professors or for those starting out.

That’s actually coming soon. I know that it’s in work for newly appointed professors. But as I said, we still have a lot of long-established professors. And it does not work like that, they think I’m up here and you’re all down there and you do what I say. And if you don’t, I’ll get loud or you’ll face some kind of consequences if you don’t get your act together. That doesn’t work. We work together. We are employed by Freie Universität. Our working group leader is put in front of us, in quotation marks. That’s why it’s our supervisor. And we all have to treat each other well. And that’s not always the case, unfortunately.

Do you have any ideas, or perhaps there are already some in the pipeline, on how to detect and prevent such abuse of power more quickly during a professor’s entire term of office? Without waiting for people to turn to you once problems have arisen or, as you have now described, for several people from a working group to turn to you when the fire is already burning. How could you perhaps introduce a kind of quality control on a regular basis so that such things don’t happen in the first place?

Well, that’s very difficult. We have so many working groups in our department. Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy is the largest department at Freie Universität. And there are so many working groups in each individual institute that it’s impossible to control them. This means that in order for me to be able to do something and to find out I am of course dependent on the employees, on everyone, whether it’s another employee, a doctoral student or a postdoc or a technical assistant, whoever. Otherwise I would never find out.
I believe that the number of unreported cases of abuse of power is very high because people are afraid to make it public. One way of possibly curbing it would perhaps be to make it compulsory to attend a workshop once a year. What has changed in that year? What else can I do? Is there any new law? Most people don’t even know that yet. Maybe if something like that would be compulsory. That wouldn’t be bad at all. Once a year it would be compulsory for university lecturers to attend a course on how to run a working group, how to deal with employees. I think that would be good.

But otherwise, if that doesn’t happen, we can’t control it because we can’t see it. And if no one approaches us – out of fear or for other reasons, or a doctoral candidate says, oh, gosh, I’ll get through the three or four years here and only realizes afterwards that he’s actually become completely ill as a result – if they don’t come to us and we really do treat everything confidentially, we don’t need to name names, I don’t need to go to the heads of the working groups either. Of course I’d like to change things. That’s why people come to me. But if the person says to me, no, I don’t want to do that because I’m scared…
Of course I always try to say, oh, come on and I’ll try to convince them. But many people say, no, please don’t, the conversation has actually already helped me, where I can look for help elsewhere, for example, psychological support. But if that’s not the case, then there’s nothing we can do because we have no insight into how the heads of the working groups treat their employees.

You have already mentioned several times the fear that academic staff have when it comes to approaching you in confidence, if there has been a case of abuse of power. Could it be that, in addition to this fear, which I am quite sure is also very present in many people, also simply be a rational consideration and to say, okay, if I now turn to the Women’s Representative and Gender Equality Officer and also allow you to turn to the head of department or the head of the working group, then I can expect this or then I have to expect that in the worst case there will be no consequences at all. And that’s not unlikely, but there could certainly be negative consequences for me as a person or for the working group as a whole, because the professor might feel that he or she has been stepped on the toes and perhaps treat people even more unfairly?

Yes, there are two problems. Of course, people don’t know how it will end, what the consequences will be, which is often very disappointing. Because they come to me, let’s say, they give their consent, I can go on, I talk to the head of the working group, but they realize that there are no consequences at all. And in return, the head of the working group is then on the case and says, watch out, not like this. I do what I can here. I do everything I can to help you progress here so that you can complete your research project. I help and do and do, and that’s the thanks I get.

I understand those people. It’s not that I don’t understand. It’s just that I always think that together we are strong. Of course, as I’ve already mentioned, that it is really bad that there are no consequences. You run into walls. There was a case of a working group leader where it was quite extreme. He was also spoken to at a higher level. And then it was said that the man was simply overworked, that’s why he reacted like that. And then they simply gave him one or two more employees. For me, or let’s say for the people who came to me, which wasn’t just one person, it’s like a slap in the face. This person treats employees really badly and, because the poor man or woman is supposedly overworked, he gets two more employees. I think to myself, that’s like getting another sweet when I’ve made a mistake. And that’s the big problem.

Sure, the person may be overworked, and I may have a certain amount of understanding for that, but it doesn’t help the employees.When I lead a working group, I know that it has so and so many employees. I can’t shout about it or freak out or, because I’m unbalanced at home, take it out on my work group. I mean, we all have bad moods from time to time, but it’s not anyone’s fault and certainly not the employees in a working group. And if there are no consequences, and here we are again, but instead sweets, then the WG management won’t learn anything from it. Then the WG management will say to itself, well, okay, then I’ll just go and talk to a higher authority. But so what?After all, I did get one or two employees out of it. That’s not a consequence for me, it’s a reward.

Yes, and it also sends out the wrong signals.

Right, right. And then I always don’t know what to say to the people who come to me with their problems and worries. Of course I tell them that I’m completely dissatisfied. And that nothing else is happening, and that it’s taking forever. The process from the day they come to me until something happens or doesn’t happen takes forever. It takes months before the person has time, before we can have a new conversation, before he or she answers. There are discussions without end. And I think that in a certain case, i.e. according to the degree of severity, for example repeat offenders, in quotation marks, consequences should really follow quickly. And it’s not enough to have a conversation with an administrative manager. It has to happen at the very top so that the person realizes that I’ve made a mistake here, I have to change something, otherwise the consequence might be that I’m no longer allowed to lead a working group. Something like that, for example.

What are your experiences with the people who come to you, how well do they know about their rights as academic staff?

Not at all. No. The thing is, they apply when there are calls for applications for doctoral candidates. Then they apply and are accepted. But I don’t think there is enough information beforehand. What are my rights and obligations? There should actually be a kind of handbook for everyone who starts working at Freie Universität, where, for example, there are emergency numbers, i.e. for sexual harassment, which Women’s Representative is responsible for my area. There is the SPDG group, for sexual violence and discrimination, where you can go to. There are many contact points at the FU, but very few of them are known.

A year or so ago, when I listed them all together, I had posters and flyers printed and sent them out. I sent them to the first-year students, for example. We always have the first-semester introduction where all the students come, and I put them in their goodie bag so that they know about them. But doctoral students, they don’t actually get anything.
They start out and we assume that most of them have already studied with us, completed their Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, are now doing their doctorates and now let’s see. But they should also get an introduction. So, where can I go if I have this or that problem? What are my obligations as a doctoral student? What are my rights?

And there should be some kind of manual containing all this. It doesn’t have to be a big book. Who likes reading thick books? It’s like having a homepage with 1000 subpages and I’m looking for something and just can’t find it because I have to click through so much. Then you just don’t feel like it anymore. So you have to reduce it to a minimum. Yes, write down the rights and obligations in bullet points:What do I have to do at the beginning? Where do I go if…? There should be something like that. But I know that this is already being discussed with the central Women’s Representative and Officer for Gender Equality of the FU, that we want to propose this to the Executive Board.

Yes, I think that’s a great idea. Or I could also imagine lectures or fireside evenings, for example. Where things are perhaps a bit livelier and where people are pointed out to those things again. With a book like this, you might have a look at it as a reference book if you really have a problem.
But if you’re made aware of certain things from the outset, for example through a lecture, that you might not even be aware of, that problems could arise during the course of your doctorate, then you might have created a different level of awareness. And then in connection with that: If the problem arises that your supervisor doesn’t want to sign the leave request for the third time and the leave now expires if you don’t take it, then the next step would be to do this and that. Or then you can make use of this and that assistance, contact this and that person.

Yes, I think the problem is time. The fact is that most academic staff work 50 percent when they are hired. But it’s also a fact that a research assistant is actually 100 percent at the FU.

Is that legal?

It is legal, yes. So actually 50 percent of my work is for the FU and the other 50 percent I’m writing my research paper or my dissertation. So that’s combined. So I would say it’s not not legal. But of course it’s at the beginning… You see 50 percent advertised and you’re actually working 12 hours for your employer.
And if vacation is being refused, because we have to be here and as quickly as possible, then you can imagine about the time… If they ask, that they would like to go to the workshop here or I want to inform myself, some working group leader would say there is no time for that. You don’t have time because you’re still behind or you have to work a bit faster. It’s not that easy either.

We have the Graduate Center here. Doctor Alette Winter does an excellent job. All doctoral candidates can go there for advice. She helps, she is also a coach. She does a great job. But some people don’t even know that this Graduate Center exists. Because, as I said, I always have the feeling that I don’t like clicking through emails and the homepage. So I don’t look or type into Google, where can I go as a doctoral candidate at the FU? That’s simply not done.

Everything should be much more transparent. There needs to be more communication. With a flood of emails, most people skip a lot of them or delete them straight away if they only see the subject line. Poster notices, yes, are actually good too, but they don’t reach the target everywhere. I don’t have the right solution yet. But I think the more we communicate, also with people such as doctoral candidates, students and other employees, who also have their problems, be it that they want to be promoted and don’t know how to do that.

So there are so many questions and sometimes perhaps too many places to go. It’s like a maze. Where do I go now? What do I do now? Is this right or is that right? What does she even do? Can she help me? I have to be careful here. If my employer finds out, there will be consequences.

That’s why I would first suggest a handbook for everyone who is newly hired. And, of course, there are always offers from the Graduate Center of the FU’s continuing education program. Workshops, further training on the subject of abuse of power, how do I get through my doctorate? So all these controversial topics that are always listed there, that people are made aware of.
There are mailing list where I can only reach doctoral candidates and postdocs and I send them something like this at regular intervals. For example there is further training for your doctorate here. Because they don’t see anything in their flood of work. They have to take care of their research project, they have to make sure that they please the head of the working group, that everything works, and at some point they also have a private life. Then they write their dissertation, which is all very stressful. And so you don’t really have an eye for anything else and try to get through these years. Only sometimes with consequences that wouldn’t have been necessary if they had gone to a contact point sooner.

I think that a nice addition to the handbook you mentioned could also be something like this podcast, for example, where you conduct regular interviews because you can also consume it on the side. You don’t have to be totally focused on it. You can also listen to it on the train, for example. And then it’s a nice addition. A simply different way to get in touch with this topic and to do educational work or to get information from the scientific staff. Have you personally had any experience of abuse of power?

Yes, unfortunately. I’ve been at Freie Universität for 40 years. The problem was simply that this appreciation, that you actually do everything you can, and even more as a secretary. Well, I can only say that as a secretary. As a Women’s Representative I am independent. I don’t have anyone reporting to me. But when I work as a secretary, I always have problems with the head of the working group, with disputes, and unfortunately I’ve had that experience. That also made me very ill at times.

Thank you very much for sharing these personal experiences with us, even if they were unfortunately not so pleasant. What are your plans for the future?

I would like to retire next year, but I would like to continue working at the FU as Women’s Representative and Officer for Gender Equality on the side, because that is the office that is so close to my heart. To support people in their worries and problems. To achieve things, to change things, to simply tackle everything that is not running smoothly or is unfair. Even the things that are always swept under the carpet. Because I can present myself to the outside world with all sorts of things. A homepage, paper is patient. But as decentralized Women’s Representative and Officer for Gender Equality, we can see what it looks like on the inside. What problems are there with the employees of the FU, in their working groups, wherever. And that’s where I’d like to be able to continue to carry out my duties in a supportive way and to be able to let people become happy again and for them to be able to say that you’ve helped me so much. That is also support.

I don’t just give advice and try to solve problems and concerns, I also provide funding for conference trips and printing work for dissertations. Because a research assistant or a member of staff doesn’t earn that much. That means I also support them with babysitting, which was extremely difficult during the corona period. It was difficult to continue working during the corona period, especially during the lockdown. And then I said, okay, you have to go to the lab sometimes because some test or project has to be done there. Find a babysitter and I’ll pay for it with the funding.
I also do lab exchanges or students who take part in excursions and simply can’t afford the 150 euros, for example, but the excursion has to take place or is part of their studies. Then of course I also fund them. And that’s all I can do to help people get through their work or their studies and relieve them of a few worries. And that’s why I would like to stay on as Women’s Representative and Officer for Gender Equality for at least another two years.

Ms. Christine Eßmann-Stern, thank you very much for this interview, but also for the important work that you do, which I think you do with a great deal of passion.

Yes, thank you for this interview and I hope many people listen to it. And maybe one or two of them will have the courage to come to me and discuss their problem with me.

We will definitely link to you again on the podcast website, as well as to the Women’s Representatives and Officers for Gender Equality in the other departments.

That would be great. Thank you very much.

OUTRO

That was the interview with Christine Eßmann-Stern. Please note that we recorded this interview last year, i.e. in 2023. So when Ms. Eßmann-Stern speaks or has spoken about next year, then she was referring to the current year, i.e. 2024.

And while I certainly hope that you yourself aren’t struggling with abuse of power, at least now you know who to turn to if that should ever happen, or if you hear about it from someone else. Remember that Christine Eßmann-Stern is the decentralized Women’s Representative and Officer for Gender Equality for the departments of biology, chemistry and pharmacy, which means that if you are doing your doctorate in another department, then check out the website for this episode. There we have an overview page for everyone and you can find which FU’s decentralized women’s representative and Officer for Gender Equality is in charge of you. On the page you will also find a link to the other episodes of the DRS Podcast. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and I’m pleased that I was able to accompany you through today’s episode as presenter. Thanks for listening and see you next time!

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

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

Prof. Dr. Christian Lammert, Political Scientist and winner of the DRS Supervisor Award 2023, talks about the importance of good supervision of doctoral candidates, his plans for the prize money and the changes in his role as a supervisor over time. Other topics include the often lacking self-confidence of doctoral candidates and possible reasons for the dissatisfaction of many doctoral candidates with their supervision. Professor Lammert also reveals what he believes is the ideal number of doctoral students that a professor can effectively supervise at the same time.

Highlights

„One cannot make a single-lane plan for the supervision of a dissertation“

„It is important to not only know the topic and methode of a dissertation during the supervision, but also the context of each candidate because one can only supervise correctly and see the necessary next steps to bring people to their degree within these three to three and a half years.“

„I have noticed for me that at a point where I supervised more than six doctoral candidates at the same time, it became a little bit more. For this reason I would probably say, three to five is a field that one can handle well. Everything else and the supervision could suffer.“

from our interview with Prof. Dr. Lammert

Audio

Download or listen to the audio version of the podcast here.

Links

Find more information on the supervision award of DRS and the past winners here.

English transcript

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 excited to host today’s episode for you. This episode is part of a series of interviews we have conducted with the winners of the DRS Supervisor Award, a prize awarded for excellent supervision of doctoral candidates.

In this episode, I talk to Christian Lammert, who is professor of political science and was one of the two winners of the Supervisor Award in 2023.

We talked about what good supervision means to him, how he plans to use the prize money and whether and how he has changed as a supervisor over time. But we also talk about the lack of self-confidence of many doctoral candidates, especially women, and about why doctoral candidates are often not satisfied with their supervision and how he thinks this can be changed.

I also found Professor Lammert’s answer to my question about the maximum number of doctoral students that a professor can supervise at the same time very interesting.

I don’t want to tell you any more in advance, but we’ll start with the interview straight away.

Professor Lammert, please briefly introduce yourself to the listeners of our podcast. 

Yes, I am a political scientist and have been at the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin for over 15 years now, where I hold the professorship for North American political systems. 

And in this role, you also supervise doctoral students who nominated you for the Supervision Award. And you didn’t just get nominated by them, you also won it. Do you remember the moment when you were informed that you had won and what was your first thought?  

Yes, I remember it pretty clearly. I took my cell phone and checked my e-mails and got this e-mail. You get it by e-mail before it officially arrives by post. And at first I was a bit skeptical and thought, what is this again? Nowadays you’re always very sensitive when you’re told somewhere that you’ve won something. But when I saw that it was all very solid and that I knew the senders by name at least, I have to admit that I was really happy and satisfied because I was also surprised. I didn’t know that anyone had nominated me and I think getting a prize like this, which is about mentoring other doctoral students, is something really nice and that’s why I was really pleased. 

I can imagine that. Also that you were suspicious at first, as I always am when I think I’ve won something…. In addition to this non-material recognition that you have just mentioned, there is also prize money of 2,000 euros, which in turn is intended to benefit the doctoral students. Do you already have an idea of what you will invest this money in?  

Yes, I already have an idea. That was always a point that many doctoral students raised. When we met regularly in a larger group to discuss the individual projects, we usually did this at the institute. And people have always suggested that we could get together somewhere outside of Berlin for an overnight stay or two and not just talk directly about the projects, but also talk a bit about the broader environment of science and what it means to become a scientist in the first place, to exchange ideas a bit. And I think I will use at least some of these funds for a retreat like this.  

On the other hand, which is always very important for our doctoral students, especially when you have such a broad spectrum of topics and, above all, methodological approaches in your work, and if I’m not so well versed in certain methods, is that you then organize special method workshops where you invite people so that the candidates can get the necessary grounding from the methods side.

That sounds like two very nice ideas. Firstly, the retreat as a team-building measure and then the methodological training. I’m sure your doctoral students will be delighted. And the special thing about this DRS Supervision Award is that the award winners are nominated by the doctoral candidates themselves, as you have just mentioned. Why do you think your doctoral candidates or one of your doctoral candidates nominated you? And what makes the way you supervise doctoral candidates so special?    

Well, I reconstructed it a bit afterwards and found out who specifically nominated me when I asked. People or the nominee didn’t tell me that beforehand,  but then she was particularly pleased that I got the award. Why was I nominated by the candidates? Yes, I don’t really know and then you ask yourself, it’s not the first time you’ve supervised doctoral students, I’ve been doing it for over ten years now. Why did you get the award now? You also think about that maybe you weren’t so good before, but now you’re better. 

But I think it always has to do with the specific contexts and I would also like to relativize my role a little. This candidate came from our graduate school. We have the Graduate School for North American Studies at the Kennedy Institute. And there it always has to do with which group comes together, how comfortable they feel and how the whole thing, the whole social context is right. And I already know in the year that I received the award that this group worked very well, that there was also very intensive contact among the candidates outside of the graduate school. And I think that’s always part of making people feel comfortable overall. And if they then consider whether it might also have something to do with the supervisor, then I’m pleased when they come to that conclusion and express their trust in me afterwards.  

What constitutes good supervision for you?  

Yes, I believe that good supervision is about engaging with the respective candidates. I don’t think you can have a one-way roadmap for supervising a dissertation. It also depends on whether they are candidates who are at the graduate school, whether they are individual doctorates, whether they are people who want to stay in academia and articulate this early on, or whether we sometimes have people who come and say I primarily want the title. I’m already on my career path, but a title like that helps me. These are different approaches that you have to consider when dealing with people and you have to find that out early on. 

You also have to get to know the candidates early on to know whether they are people you have to put under a bit of pressure because they need deadlines, because they need intensive support. Are they people who need to be slowed down a bit? I’ve also seen people take on far too much and then overwork themselves if you don’t intervene. So I think that in addition to the basic supervision in terms of topic and method, it is important that you also know the candidate’s context well, because only then can you provide good supervision and take the necessary steps to get people to graduate in these three, three and a half years. 

Is that something you specifically ask or does it come out anyway if you know each other well?  

I don’t ask that specifically. I would find that … That would somehow be a breach of trust and it would also make it seem as if you really had a pattern that you were using. So we meet regularly with the doctoral students to discuss things. But we also meet up after such meetings or at the beginning or end of the semester to go to the beer garden together and talk about other things. And then you get to know the people a bit, also in the group, when they are at the graduate school, how it works there, how they work together, that they tend to motivate each other. It can also happen that a group like that blocks you or makes you anxious because you think you’re not smart enough. So I think you always have to observe everything closely at the beginning and then you’ll realize that. I think a questionnaire like that would be counterproductive.  

Now you mentioned earlier the surprise when you won this award and that you wondered why it was at this precise moment in time. Do you think that the way you supervise has changed over the years and that you are a different supervisor today than you were ten years ago?  

By all means. Or let’s say I hope so, at least. But of course you learn from every supervision. It’s also an intensive relationship that you build up with the candidates here. And sometimes you realize that something didn’t go well. There are always conflict situations. And then you always ask yourself, why is that? Are you too close? Are you giving people too much freedom? Do you have to intervene more in terms of content? Are you putting too little pressure on them? You always realize that afterwards, hopefully in most cases in between, that you can still make corrections. 

But that’s always the case at the end of any promotion, when it’s finished, and then of course you review it again. If it could have gone faster, if it could have been done differently. You also notice whether people are satisfied with the result. And that usually doesn’t stop there. That’s what it’s all about and you have to discuss it with people at an early stage: What should happen next? And that’s always a nice indicator, where you realize that you haven’t done everything wrong and, above all, that the candidates haven’t done everything wrong, if there are employment prospects afterwards and you can also be supportive, for example in publishing the work. And if it all works well, then you have the feeling that you’ve done quite well. And that’s been happening more and more recently. And then I think that you’ve also learned from the examples before. 

Yes, great, I’m pleased to hear that your doctoral students are finding employment well there. And that is definitely a point that I will come back to towards the end of the interview. But what would interest me right now is whether there are or were one or more people or perhaps experiences that have shaped the way you support your doctoral students today. 

I’m now thinking about the positive things, whether I had candidates. Yes, I think it’s more when there are problems that you start thinking about what you can do better. If everything goes smoothly, I always tell that to the people, if you think it’s going smoothly, then I won’t intervene much, apart from the normal feedback rounds that you always have. But if you notice that something isn’t working, then of course you try to improve it. For example, I had … I mentioned earlier that sometimes dissertations are submitted by people who are not planning an academic career at all, but who need it for their job.   And I also had one candidate who was always very short on time because he was of course also very involved in his job and had to use his vacation time and that is of course also a high stress factor. And I hadn’t taken that into account and sometimes I think I put him under a bit too much pressure and expected too much. And now I also know that I have to ask people beforehand exactly how much time they really have and how they imagine they can manage the whole thing in parallel with their dissertation and their job, because it’s an immense burden. 

Another problem that I often see is that some people lack self-confidence and you have to discover that early on. Sometimes female candidates try …,and there it really is often a gender problem. In my experience, women are often more insecure, not in general, but more often, there is a tendency to question their own performance. They question themselves much more often than male candidates do. And you also have to recognize this early on and signal to people that if they are insecure, they should get in touch immediately. And sometimes they don’t. And you have to develop a sense for when people somehow run into a dead end because they don’t trust themselves, so that you recognize this crisis situation early on. I think I’m sensitized to the fact that I can recognize such things earlier and that I can support them so that they don’t run into this dead end. 

Yes, I think that’s a very important point about self-confidence and I think it’s wonderful that you also have an eye on it, because it’s also something that people don’t necessarily dare to address on their own. 

Exactly. 

Unfortunately, not all doctoral candidates are as satisfied with their supervision as yours. According to a study by the Leibniz PhD Network, the satisfaction of doctoral candidates with their supervision also decreases over the course of their doctorate. Do you have any ideas as to why this is the case? 

I would emphasize two factors. On the one hand, I would want to criticize myself and my colleagues a little and perhaps also the university system, that traditionally, and this is only now slowly changing, you are not prepared to properly supervise such work, to deal with people over such a long period of time. That’s a social skill that you have to have. Of course, it’s also a professional skill that you have to have. 

And many of my colleagues, and sometimes I don’t exclude myself from this, think that if you have the technical expertise, you’ll be fine. And then the candidates just have to fall back on this professional expertise. And I believe that the university should offer more support at an early stage, perhaps even for young academics, when it’s clear that people are aiming for an academic career, in terms of what supervision looks like. The FU already has a very good program that is voluntary and is mostly used by people who are already better mentors than others. But here you have to consider to what extent you can create incentives for professors to voluntarily train themselves to provide better supervision. 

The other thing that I think is a problem is the overall work overload and the expectations in the scientific landscape in Germany. And that’s a big difference. I know this from American colleagues or Canadian colleagues who are under much less pressure to acquire third-party funding, to write these applications. And in this system, of course, there are also incentives to exploit such doctoral candidates a little for other purposes by having them co-write such applications and incorporate their expertise. Of course, this can also benefit people for their future career, but my experience is often that you actually distract people, that you also increase the pressure, because then there is a completely different set of expectations, which can then become problematic in such a relationship of dependency. 

And here you should simply say that if someone supervises a lot of doctorates, you first have to make sure that there aren’t too many. So I sometimes ask myself, what is the maximum number of doctorates you can supervise at the same time? If you have a graduate school like this, that’s something you have to ask yourself so that everyone still benefits from it. And then you also have to give people a bit of support so that they can use sufficient resources to provide good training. Because that is the future of universities and science, that we produce good young talent. And sometimes this is treated a bit neglected in the overall concept of expectations in science. 

Where would you personally see the limit for how many doctoral students you can supervise at the same time? 

Well, I’ve often thought about that and there is even a minimum number, I would say. So I would say that if you only ever have one candidate, that can be problematic because you might become too fixated on them and then people don’t have any colleagues with whom they can exchange ideas. They can also talk about the supervisor, the supervision. I think it’s also important for people to have an environment outside of this relationship with the supervisor where they can talk about the work, but also about the situation. And that’s where three people are really good. And I noticed that when I was supervising more than six doctorates at the same time, it became a bit much. That’s why I would probably say that three to five is a field that you can still manage well. Everything else suffers in terms of supervision.  

How many doctoral students are you currently supervising?  

I currently still have three. This is partly due to the fact that we are now out of DFG funding for our graduate school, where we had twelve doctoral scholarships every year at the beginning or for almost twelve years, with three of them sometimes going to our department, where you were also involved as a first or second supervisor. And this is currently being cut back because the DFG funding has come to an end. And I now have two remaining cases. That sounds a bit negative. In other words, people who are already a bit past the doctoral period, who still want to finish, but who are both already working. And another individual doctorate that is being processed. And the next one will have to wait until after the graduate school. That’s another strategy, looking for funding in order to supervise such projects again. 

How do you think universities can deal with the fact that there are now supervisors who either – which unfortunately also happens – don’t actually fulfill their duties of support and don’t provide assistance or are perhaps even toxic? 

Yes, I think there needs to be massive intervention here. I don’t know how you can introduce such a warning system. Berlin now also has the Dahlem Research School, which mainly looks after doctoral students and programs on how they can be improved. There are also representatives of the doctoral candidates in it and I think that contact options need to be found here so that such candidates can also address problematic supervisory relationships, which can be problematic in very different ways, either you are ignored, exploited or there are other forms of abuse, so that this can be addressed. And then, of course, you would have to have committees that discuss such things and possibly also draw consequences and, in case of doubt, if there are extreme violations of the obligation to supervise, also temporarily restrict the right to award doctorates for certain people or recommend some kind of further training so that such things don’t happen. 

But I think there is a lack of contact persons at the universities for doctoral candidates to exchange ideas in such cases. I think the institution of the Graduate School has actually been a very good step forward here, because it has enabled candidates to exchange ideas with each other. Because sometimes you don’t even realize that you’re in a problematic supervisory relationship if you can’t exchange ideas with others. But if you discuss it with others, and that happens in graduate schools like this, then you’re more likely to have the courage to articulate something. But then of course you also have to do that, because you can’t leave the candidates to find a new supervisor on their own with all the effort and distraction that this entails from the actual doctoral project. So there has to be intensive support from the university.  

Yes, I definitely agree with you and in my experience, it’s often not a lack of contact points, but rather a lack of consequences. I have already conducted an interview for this podcast with the central ombudsperson of the FU and with the women’s representative of a department. And what came out of that was actually rather… Well, they are available as contact persons, for example, but that often nothing happens when a complaint is made and that is of course also a deterrent for future doctoral candidates, other early career researchers, etc., when you see, okay, someone actually complained, but in the end nothing even came of it. 

Exactly, exactly. But sometimes, even if you have the places, many of the candidates don’t even know that they can go there with such problems. You always think that something must have really happened. But there are also more subtle forms in which this support can be exploited, in which people are put under psychological pressure for whatever reason. And then, as I’ve also heard from conversations with doctoral students, they often don’t even know that this is a case that should definitely be discussed with gender officers and ombudspersons. So I think it would be important here, when someone starts a doctorate, to communicate these options openly and perhaps provide addresses and telephone numbers as a kind of handout on who to contact in which cases.  

That was exactly the topic I discussed with the Women’s and Equal Opportunities Officer. We’ve already talked about what constitutes good support and what constitutes less good support. But to come back to this point, good supervision doesn’t just involve the supervisor, but of course also the doctoral student. What is particularly important to you when you talk to potential doctoral candidates and what do you think they should bring to the table, both on a professional level, but perhaps also on a personal or other level?  

That’s a good question. And that’s also something I always try to make clear to people at an early stage in discussions about what it means to write a doctorate. We also have some candidates who ended up at the graduate school, who we got to know beforehand during their studies. Some have even completed a BA, a Master’s degree with us at the Kennedy Institute and then a doctorate, others just a Master’s degree, some come from outside and apply. You have to talk to people early on about what their ideas are, what it means to write a thesis, a doctoral thesis, what they think they need to invest in terms of work.  

So if you write a doctorate, you need over three and a half years, some people need four years, some people only need three years, that’s also possible. You have to be extremely disciplined, but you also have to – and I think it’s very important because most people find this very difficult – be careful not to start exhausting yourself, because sometimes you’re not in any normal context where you’re off work or where you know you have to finish it in 14 days and then you’ve done something and then something new comes along. You have a big project ahead of you and then you think you have to work 24 hours a day. It’s also a discipline to say, I’m not working now. And you have to talk to people at an early stage to discuss strategies for structuring your day so that you can put down the keyboard in the evening with a reasonably good feeling and say, that’s it and now I’m going to do something else. So you have to have the discipline and the sense not to exhaust yourself.  

And what is very important is that people have to work on a topic. A colleague of mine once put it like this: you have to have an inner fire for it. So you have to have a real interest in the topic. If you notice that these individual doctorates, who usually only want a title, come to you and say, yes, I’m a bit interested in this and that area, could you perhaps give me a topic to work on. That’s never a good starting point. So people have to try to come up with their own idea that really interests them and has the nutritional value to feed the candidates intellectually for these three years.  

If that’s not there, then you have to question the whole thing early on. And I think that’s also very important, and that’s more the role of the supervisor again, to tell people honestly quite early on that it might not make sense to go through the three years and waste the time, and then you end up with a degree that doesn’t qualify you to stay in academia or you might not get a degree at all. 

So that’s also something I always do. I observe people very, very closely at the beginning and after six months at the latest, if I think it doesn’t make sense, then I communicate that. These are moments of crisis, of course, and you have to be very sensitive, but I think it’s also fair to the people who invest so much time in working on a project. 

I can hear that you have also done this in the past, that people have suggested that you drop out of the doctorate, right? 

Yes. 

And how was that received? 

It’s usually not well received. Especially when people have already received a scholarship. I had a candidate whose Master’s thesis I supervised and it was a very difficult project, with emotional crises where you had to spend hours in the office providing psychological support because there was such a crisis of meaning. And then there was also a candidate who came back at some point and said, I’ve got it under control now and I’d like to do a doctorate because she was also in a certain context where she would actually have been able to access materials well in terms of the topic, but after just a few months I realized that it would start all over again. Nothing has changed. And I told her that too. And that was very emotional again. But then she realized that too and dropped out of the doctorate. 

And do you know whether she continued elsewhere or actually finished with it? 

No, she’s no longer doing her doctorate. She ended up at an international organization and is now working in the field of human rights policy. 

I also asked so precisely because I could well imagine that if someone tells you that you’re not suitable for a doctorate or that you’re not doing yourself any good by doing so, that this will initially meet with resistance …  

I wouldn’t put it like that either. I think that would be too harsh. I couldn’t do that. Of course, I always say that I try to ask, is that really what you want? And how do you envisage things continuing like this? Don’t you think that this will happen again, especially if you’ve already seen the experience with the Master’s thesis, that it will rob you of the same strength again and then you’ll get people to do it. I would consider it an affront to tell someone that you are not suitable for a doctorate. At that moment, I would also consider my competencies to have been exceeded. Once I’ve accepted someone as a candidate, I can ask whether they really believe they can do it on their own or whether another path might be better. But if they say no, this route is better, then as a supervisor I have to accompany them on the best possible path and hope that I can get them through. Also with further training courses that are offered in the university context.  

I didn’t mean to accuse you of being too direct and you have a sensitive way of approaching the conversation. But I can still imagine that it’s a big shock at first when you’re told that the other person doesn’t necessarily see you where you used to see yourself. 

Yes, that’s right. Yes.  

Do you often receive initial applications from people you don’t even know who would like to do a doctorate with you? 

Yes, we get that quite often because we are also one of the few research and teaching institutes at the FU where everything is done entirely in English. This means that we get an incredible number of unsolicited inquiries from people from all over the world. And you have to take a look at how well-founded the interest really is and also the discussion as to why these people have now asked me. With most things, you can tell from the cover letter that it’s a collective letter and only my name is written at the top and then you ask a few colleagues and then they say yes, I got them all. 

In such cases, I always say no straight away. I also say no to candidates that I don’t know and where it doesn’t fit thematically. For example, if they … I’m mainly responsible for domestic policy in political systems at our institute. I also get a lot of requests from people who want to do something about American foreign policy. And if there’s no justification as to why I’m an excellent supervisor, then I always say no, because for me that’s also a sign that people haven’t really looked into the options for supervisors. But we do get a lot of requests like that. 

And how can I increase my chances there, apart from the things you have already mentioned now? Of course, I should send a cover letter and make it clear in any way why I think you are a suitable supervisor for my doctoral thesis. But will it help if I send you a short exposé? Would you like to have a long, elaborated exposé to see that I have worked my way into it? Or is it really about the topic first and it must be clear why the person is contacting you?  

No, that’s absolutely right. So a brief description of the project, that’s what I need. That’s what most people send. That’s not usually what is lacking. Of course, you can talk about the quality of these proposals, but if someone has just finished their studies and develops an idea like this, then it’s okay if it’s still a bit cloudy. So that’s what I expect. I expect a cover letter that makes the motivation clear. And it shouldn’t contain generalities like „the FU is one of the most prestigious universities and that would be good for my career“. 

But you also have to have dealt with the content a bit, why the institute, the FU, the Kennedy Institute and why I would be suitable as a supervisor now. Then I actually also expect people to have looked into my research a bit, to what extent they can benefit from it. That sometimes happens, motivated students do that. I always find that quite good, because then I can also assess for myself that people have thought about why I should be the supervisor. So this information has to be there and there has to be a project idea that really has the potential to bring something surprising to light or generate something new in terms of knowledge.  

If something is missing from that, then I am always very skeptical and ask again. And I would say that if you then ask so critically why I should supervise it or why the Kennedy Institute is so suitable: In 50 percent of cases, you don’t get an answer at all. And then you also know that it was perhaps a collective email. So it should give the impression that you already have a specific project idea and that people have thought about why I would be a good supervisor.  

Yes, it’s also interesting that when you ask back, that you don’t even get an answer, because people are obviously looking for a job or a place to do a doctorate. 

I would like to come back to the topic of self-exploitation, which you mentioned earlier, because I find this very important in the university context or in the academic world in general. And unfortunately, this self-exploitation and working around the clock is something that is often exemplified by professors. How do you perhaps try to set an example against this? I’m thinking of things like availability outside of working hours or something like that. Do you have certain rules that you perhaps even put into words directly? Or do you behave in a certain way to show your doctoral students how they can or should manage their time? 

Yes, that’s absolutely part of it. I don’t just do that with doctoral students. I also try to make it clear to people on my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree courses that I write directly in my syllabus how they can reach me and that I generally don’t answer emails after 6 p.m. and before 8 a.m. and also don’t answer emails at the weekend. I then tell the doctoral students the same thing, with the exception of course, unless it’s somehow an emergency. And by emergency, of course, I mean that you somehow think … That’s also something that happens very often, that people are in the third year of their doctorate and suddenly find a publication that does something similar. And then the big crisis of meaning begins. So I said that in emergencies like that, where you really have doubts about the project, you can contact me in the evening or at the weekend. 

But like this I also try to signal that scientists are allowed to call it a day. That’s how I try to set an example. I always say quite openly and honestly that I’ll tell people when I’m going on vacation, when I’m not available and that they can still email me if they have any problems, acute problems of course, but otherwise they should leave me alone. And I also try to give people strategies on how to manage to stop working. So what I always tell people, for example, is that they should stop working from late afternoon around 5 or 6 p.m., and of course that also depends on what kind of candidates they are. Of course, I’ve also had PhD students who are night owls, who don’t get up until 11 and work until two in the morning. That’s fine if that’s what they have to do. I don’t want to forbid them to do that.  

But when they finish work, a good tool is always to briefly write down what you’ve done that day, in bullet points. So that you also have some reassurance that it wasn’t wasted time and at the same time to make a note of what you’re planning to do the next day, what the to-dos are, two or three points. Because the moment you’ve done something like that, you can also finish. If you haven’t written it down, then you keep thinking about it. So I try to teach people things like that, techniques like that, so that people have a certain distance from their work. And I think it’s also part of it and that’s why I also said that you often go to the beer garden with a group or have dinner somewhere in a restaurant, that it’s not just the dissertation, but that people also realize that there’s a life besides academia and that you have to set an example for people. 

Yes, I think it’s very important and thank you for sharing this technique, which is almost like a ritual to bring the day to a close and to say goodbye to one day and get in the mood for the next or to make it easier to start the next day. 

We’ve almost reached the end, but I have one more question to pick up on the topic from the beginning. You talked about the fact that doctoral candidates also have very different career aspirations. Let’s assume that someone is aiming for an academic career and wants to become a professor later on. What advice would you give this person? What should they definitely do to ensure they are well positioned? 

Yes, that’s always part of the discussions I usually have after a year of the doctorate, when I also see that people really have the potential. Then I try to make it clear to people that it’s not just a good job, but that you also have to present yourself specifically with this first work in certain scientific communities where you want to be recognized later. That you need to think about this early on. And that is precisely …. I can only speak for political science now, but if you are a political scientist doing a doctorate at the Kennedy Institute, for example, you have to be careful that you are not seen as an Americanist. 

People need to learn early on that they have expertise that is in demand in the scientific field in addition to the topic of North America, which is very prominent here. And you have to think about this at an early stage. Is it party research, is it federalism research, is it certain methodological approaches that you refine and that the USA is then just a case study that is important for the academic profile, but does not offer any future options as a unique selling point. The next question is how and where you have to publish, how many articles should you try to place somewhere during your doctorate, which conferences do you go to in order to form networks, how important are such networks.  

So I try to discuss this with people at an early stage. If they are already reasonably confident in their project, we usually get them to write their first proposal for a conference on a smaller scale, and then I go to the conference with them. Then you go there together, so it’s also a kind of safe space when you present your results for the first time. And then at some point you push them to the big conferences. 

And you have to be careful that it all works, but I’ve only had very good experiences so far. We once had six doctoral students at our institute who applied for such conferences. We always give practice presentations so that they can present their papers in a small setting and then get feedback so that they are more confident when they go out to compete with others for ideas. I think you have to make it clear to people early on what the risks are. What does it mean to live in this postdoc phase with great uncertainty as far as employment prospects are concerned for up to ten years? Some are even longer, having to move from one externally funded project to the next. You also have to prepare people for this so that they don’t enter the academic world with too much idealization.  

That sounds like a wonderful accompaniment and a wonderful introduction to the difficult situations that you are then exposed to. Professor Lammert, I would like to thank you very much for your time and for this interview. 

Yes, of course. 

OUTRO 

This was an interview with Professor Lammert, who won the DRS Supervisor Award in 2023. If you enjoyed this interview, you are also welcome to listen to the other interviews we have already conducted with other award winners. You can also find the link to the Supervisor Award on the website for this episode if you are doing your own doctorate at the FU and have a great supervisor you would like to nominate. 

That was Dr. Marlies Klamt for the DRS Podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School of Freie Universität Berlin.  

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

 

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

HIGHLIGHTS

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

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

From our interview with Prof. Reiher

AUDIO

Links

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

In this interview we talk about the following:

How she plans to use the prize money

What is generally important to her when supervising doctoral researchers

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

What she wishes from her doctoral researchers

Why she herself completed her doctorate on the train

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

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

I hope you enjoy listening to it now.

Prof. Reiher, please introduce yourself briefly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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


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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you very much.

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

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

To decide whether or not a doctorate is the right choice for you is not easy. This episode is meant to assist you in the decision making process. It will explore the pros and cons of doing a doctorate, what kind of motivation can contribute to a happy and successful journey, and other factors you should take into account.

Highlights

„You won’t be the same person after finishing your doctorate as you have been before“

„A pro and con list alone will most likely not help you make your final decision.“

„Distinguish between what you want and what other people think is good for you.“

„Don’t forget that making a decision can also involve setting conditions or exclusions.“

from our episode with co-host Dr. Marlies Klamt

Audio

Download or listen to the audio version of the podcast here.

Links

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transcript

1. First question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy doing scientific work?
2. Second question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy reading scientific texts?
3. Third question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy scientific writing?
4. Fourth question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you enjoy doing your master’s thesis?
5. Fifth question, on a scale of 1 to 10, how much of your time and energy are you willing to invest in your doctorate?

Your host for this podcast was Dr. Marlies Klamt