The five modules in the Graduate Studies Support Program
Modul 1: Kick Off Your Doctorate Retreat Getting started and initial networking: A day-long group retreat provides information and introduces techniques for getting a dissertation project off to a successful start. Networking opportunities are also available.
Modul 2: (In)Credible Research Conference Outstanding research in practice: A conference on good research and research integrity presents the rules and principles of good scientific practice, clarifies questions of ethical responsibility, and offers space to discuss the importance of the reproducibility of research findings.
Modul 3: Writing Weeks Finding the right words: A week-long event with a focus on writing is intended to help people structure their personal writing process, tackle writer’s block, and develop publication skills. Reflecting on the writing process and writing with a peer partner help with this.
Modul 4: Mental Health Days Ensuring good health and resilience throughout the doctoral process: This blended learning event focusing on mental health and resilience teaches strategies for building mental endurance and shows how to overcome even crisis situations with composure.
Module 5: Career Day What’s next: A career day event highlights career paths within and outside academia and encourages participants to get a head start on personal career planning.
Go to the Graduate Studies Support Program
Writing together, connecting with each other
Teilnehmende der „Writing Weeks“ diskutieren über ihre Texte
Image Credit: Heike Kampe
This might sound familiar to anyone who is writing a dissertation: The experiments went well, the data has been collected and analyzed, the literature research is complete, and the results are respectable. At this point, a good dissertation could be the capstone on all the hard work of the past few years. But many doctoral candidates put off getting started, or they find that they get bogged down in the writing process. They feel overwhelmed by the task of summarizing their research in a readable and meaningful text. But there’s no way around it. Anyone who wants to earn a doctorate has to commit their research findings to paper, either in a monograph or in multiple articles published in scientific or scholarly journals.
That’s just what 14 doctoral candidates at the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin are doing now, on a sunny Friday. They are sitting together with partners or in groups of three, deeply engaged in discussing the texts they have written over the past few hours and days. It’s the last day of Writing Week, a writing workshop where they learn to structure writing processes more clearly, overcome writer’s block, and make progress, chapter by chapter. Where do I start? How should I start a new paragraph? And how do I make sure not to lose the thread of my argument? Writing coach Anselm Spindler helps doctoral candidates with all of these questions, explaining not only which writing techniques are helpful, but also how to manage their time effectively.
High demand
The regular Writing Weeks are one of five modules offered by the Graduate Studies Support Program, which the Berlin University Alliance has established to support doctoral candidates from all four alliance partners on their career journeys. Aleksandra Skoric from the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin came up with the idea and also organizes the Writing Weeks, which are held four times a year. “There is very high demand for this service. The workshop fills up every time, and other prospective participants end up on the wait list,” she explains. The week-long workshop is intended to give candidates time and space to focus on writing together. Through dialogue with each other and the guidance provided by an experienced writing coach, they learn to reflect on their own writing and work efficiently and with motivation. “It really works great with a partner or as part of a group,” Skoric explains.
Felix Schott is one of the doctoral candidates who have managed to snag a spot in the workshop, making use of this option. He is writing a dissertation in law, specifically international and constitutional law. “The workshop is a good time investment,” he says. “I’m learning things I can use not just for my dissertation, but also for many other projects.” He knows the feeling of not really making progress with writing, that sense that everything is tough and laborious. “When that happens, it’s helpful to pause and take time to reflect and really consider the best way to structure your work.” He took the Writing Week event as an opportunity to do just that and ended up adding a number of pages to his dissertation.
A good writing atmosphere is important
“The workshop always kicks off with a few keynote talks on the most common topics where people need advice,” Skoric says, describing the content of the Writing Weeks. The tendency to put off what is often perceived as a chore, finding the right structure for the paper, and publication options are all covered, along with writing a concise abstract or summary. One positive side effect of the writing groups, Skoric explains, is that doctoral candidates learn to think outside the box, moving beyond their own field of research and developing ideas for interdisciplinary research projects. “That’s one of the objectives of the Graduate Studies Support Program: From the first module to the last, it creates stable networks that continue well beyond the doctoral phase itself,” she notes. The Writing Week idea also gave rise to another initiative that is especially helpful in supporting candidates during the writing phase: the Writing Café. Each Thursday, doctoral candidates meet online to work on their dissertations together and get individual advice from the writing coach who is also participating.
“Stick with it, and create a good writing atmosphere for yourself,” Schott says as a tip for everyone who is in the same situation as him and trying to conclude their doctoral projects. As for what constitutes an optimal atmosphere for writing, that varies between individuals. “For me, it helps to reduce potential distractions, get together and write with others, and take coffee breaks together in between periods of focused writing.”
“First I was a scientist, now I work for scientists”
Dr. Weronika Karle
Image Credit: Stefan Klenke
Dr. Weronika Karle is a biologist. She earned her doctorate at Charité and worked as a postdoc in medical research there. It sounds like a typical scientific career – but at some point, Karle, a young scientist with two children of her own, started looking around for alternatives. She happened to run across the Job Shadowing Program operated by the Postdoc Academy. She applied and ended up discovering a whole range of new possibilities for her own career. Today, she works as a project coordinator in the area of promoting talent at the Berlin University Alliance. She reviews which of the programs offered are especially beneficial to researchers and what constitutes a good culture of supervision and support in science and academia.
Ms. Karle, when you participated in the BUA Job Shadowing Program, you spent a week shadowing a manager from the field of science, so you got to know what their job involves and what their day-to-day work is like. What prompted you to participate in the program, and what were your expectations?
Working conditions in the research sector aren’t easy, especially in the early stages of a person’s career. Contracts are always for a limited term, and the future is uncertain. Especially if you have a family, like I do, you need more job security. So, after a few years as a postdoc, I started wondering what else I could do aside from research, and began looking around for alternatives. Purely by chance, I happened on the BUA Job Shadowing Program. I was especially attracted to the field of scientific management and scientific coordination. I wanted to try it out – although I didn't have any major expectations. I was really curious, but I didn’t know exactly what spending a week as a job shadowee would actually be like.
Who was your host, and what was a typical day like during the shadowing process?
I shadowed Dr. med Anja Bondke Persson, Research Funding Coordinator at Charité. I got to tag along with her for a week and get to know the various things she does. It was a really varied experience, and I learned a lot about the work done behind the scenes, like how scholarships and prizes are awarded and what is really important in submitting a grant proposal or other application for funds. We’ve even stayed in touch afterward.
What experiences did you find especially valuable and memorable?
Networking is incredibly important. Building and maintaining networks is an important part of working in the sciences and the research sector. Just in the span of one week, I met so many people from many different fields. It was also hugely exciting for me to see how a committee reaches a shared decision. The process I have in mind had to do with awarding a prize, and I got to watch as the professors discussed which aspects were especially important to them, how they viewed the crucial questions from their perspective, and what is generally important in the case of presentations. I learned a lot from that, and it will be useful to me later on as well.
How did participating in the Job Shadowing Program influence your personal career?
I realized that I definitely did have the scope and ability to move out of the lab and take on a role outside of research. A lot of postdocs think they can’t do anything but research. But once you’ve spent years doing research, you also have so many important skills and so much experience in everything from logistics, management, and communication to writing, team leadership, and statistics. We are quick, independent problem solvers, and that’s something that can be useful and necessary in many other fields as well. The week I spent job shadowing gave me the courage to try something different and apply for jobs in academia but outside of research. So, you could say I switched sides: First I was a scientist, and now I work for scientists. It’s a good feeling.
The Job Shadowing Program is offered by the Postdoc Academy. It is one of various programs organized by the Berlin University Alliance to provide targeted career support to postdocs. Workshops, classes, networking meet-ups, and continuing and professional education programs are all opportunities for researchers to get to know their own strengths and cultivate the skills and expertise they need to meet their individual career objectives.
An international presence
Bundesforschungsministerin Bettina Stark-Watzinger im Gespräch mit Günter M. Ziegler (rechts) und Yoan Vilain (Mitte) am BUA-Stand
Image Credit: @barakshramaphotography
It is among the most important international trade shows focusing on networking and information for German researchers: the annual meeting of the German Academic International Network (GAIN), which was held in San Francisco this past August. German academics attend panel discussions, workshops, and talks and engage in dialogue with representatives of the German scientific and academic landscape, government, and industry. They also learn about funding and job opportunities in Germany and forge ties with research institutions, scientific and academic organizations, and higher education institutions. Prospective candidates get information on forming junior research groups, applying for professorships, and careers in the private sector and in science management.
The Berlin research landscape, of which the Berlin University Alliance is a part, has a lot to offer in all of these areas. Appealing options were featured at the event in San Francisco. BUA spokesperson and Freie Universität Berlin president Günter M. Ziegler was among those in attendance. “Especially with the range of support options we offer for researchers across all career phases, we set standards here in Berlin as a network of excellence within the German scientific and academic landscape,” Ziegler explains. “Now and into the future, we view Berlin as a creative and diverse metro region with excellent quality of life that offers career opportunities for bright and innovative minds from all over the world – in cutting-edge research, science management, and the relationship between science, academia, and the research sector and the city at large.”