The first months of 2018 are already over, the perfect opportunity to look back and provide you with a first summary. So far, this year proves to be extremely fruitful and productive for our Leibniz PhD Network. Here is our logbook from its first month.

Meeting the president on the 17^th of January: Matthias Kleiner, the President of the Leibniz Association, was always very supportive of the Leibniz PhD Network – and he still is! Our spokespersons Kasia and Jan-Lucas met Mr. Kleiner in the Leibniz Head Office to inform him about current developments in our network and get to know each other. The Leibniz President defined good scientific practice and an open communication about career perspectives as two key topics and he aims for a “Leibniz feeling”. Here we go, just have a look at our working groups!

Presenting preliminary survey results on the 18^th of January: How satisfied are the Leibniz PhDs, how do they rate their work life balance and what do they aspire for their careers? All these questions will be answered with the Leibniz PhD survey. After tons of reminders (in fact only 3) a first dataset of more than 800 complete responses was analyzed by the survey working group. Kasia and Jan-Lucas presented some demographics and very preliminary descriptive statistics in the Leibniz project group on career development. The project group is very keen on getting more numbers. We are happy to deliver, especially as the extended deadline worked perfectly out. The survey outnumbered the 1,000 completed interviews threshold in the meantime.

Planning the next steps of N² on the 29^th of January: Again, it’s the Leibniz Head Office in Berlin. The N² Board and Advisory Board assembled at the Leibniz Head Office in Berlin to discuss the future projects and structure of the network of networks, only interrupted by the obligatory group photo and an excellent carrot-ginger-soup. N² is progressing really well and will host another N² Joint Event in 2019. Moreover, it’s our common will to produce the currently largest PhD survey in Germany in the same year by harmonizing the PhD surveys in the 3 member networks. 2019 will be definitely very special. Simply get in touch with us, if you want to participate in one of the two endeavors.

Visiting our friends and a supercomputer on the 31^st of January to 1^st of February: A few hours after closing the N² board meeting, Kasia and Jan-Lucas traveled to the Helmholtz Forschungszentrum Jülich (close to Aachen). Our spokesperson presented the Leibniz PhD Network and N² at the General Meeting of the Helmholtz Juniors. The Helmholtz PhD representatives were extremely creative in a brainstorming and identified some interesting topics for our upcoming N² Joint Event. It could be about “interdisciplinarity & methods”, “science & society” or another topic, probably containing a hackathon, public workshops, or a science slam. Now it’s up to us, in Leibniz, Max Planck and Helmholtz, to make a decision. Last but not least, a warm welcome and congratulations to Vasiliki “Vicky” Anastasopoulou and Erich Zähringer, who were elected spokespersons of the Helmholtz Juniors and will be the next N² Board members for Helmholtz.

Title picture: Bahnhof Düren, a perfect place to have a phone call with the Leibniz Headoffice.