The N² Event is just next week get you tickets and reserve a place for yourself.

Registration links :  https://registration.socio.events/e/n2event2021

This year’s N² Network event connects early career researchers from the humanities, natural and social sciences. Bringing together inspiring speakers, trainers, and experts from fields like politics, economy, natural sciences and communication the N² event will engage in topics around open science and sustainability.

Interested in how to communicate research results in an open and accessible way? Looking to build a more sustainable career or work more sustainably? Then this is for you! Within three days, the online event provides insights on open science publication channels, sustainable career planning, funding possibilities, and offers great opportunities to network. It gives early career researchers of the N² member organizations the unique possibility to get in touch with peers beyond their own institutions and to exchange with stakeholders in academia and beyond. Additionally, we reserved some spots for early career researchers from the associate and guest members of the network.

The N² Event 2021 aims to empower participants to grow their network and to offer perspectives on their future in or outside of academia.

This N2 Network Event 2021 is open to all PhD researchers from the full members of the N2 – Network:

Helmholtz Research Centers, Leibniz Research Centers,Max Planck Institutes and its associate and guest members: IPP Mainz, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU).

Program Information: The program features keynote speakers, panel discussions as well as parallel workshop sessions in small groups and includes plenty of time for networking.

Days 1-2 (October 13 and 14): Perspectives on Open & Sustainable Research. The program on these two days is included in all tickets. If you wish to attend only these two days please select the ticket: N2 Network Event 2021 Days 1 – 2.

Day 3 (October 15): Career Development – Skills and Perspectives. The program on this third day is included in the following tickets:

N2 Network Event 2021 Days 1 – 3: Helmholtz.

N2 Network Event 2021 Days 1 – 3: Leibniz.

N2 Network Event 2021 Days 1 – 3: Max Planck.

N2 Network Event 2021 Days 1 – 3: N2 associate and guest members.

Please pay attention that the tickets for all three days have fixed quotas for PhD candidates from the Helmholtz Association, the Leibniz Association, the Max Planck Society and from the N2 associate and guest members.

The Event plan is as follows :

Field research is an integral part of data collection for many (PhD) researchers. Yet, questions of ethics and safety in the field are not always adequately addressed by institutions, universities, and PhD supervisors. Thus, many insecurities prevail. How to deal with power relations when conducting research in the Global South? And how to make sure that all parties remain safe and sound when dealing with sensitive topics?

In order to discuss such questions and to create a room for exchange, a team of six PhD students from German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA: Niklas Krösche, Lisa Hoffmann, Désirée Reder and Swantje Schirmer) and Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF/HSFK: Simone Schnabel and Clara-Auguste Süß) organized the digital workshop “Considering Ethics and Safety in Field Research in the Global South” on 8th and 9th of December 2020. Thanks to the financial support of the Leibniz PhD Network’s event funding, we virtually brought together 24 doctoral researchers from GIGA, PRIF, Helmut-Schmidt University Hamburg as well as from the Universities of Bonn, Tübingen, and Leiden.

The two-day workshop focussed on two crucial, yet still widely overlooked aspects of field research – ethics and safety – and thereby aimed at discussing and critically reflecting power relations, identity and positionality in the field. The participants were invited to not only share their experiences but also their inquiries which helped to critically assess our role as researchers in conducting research in the Global South. In doing so, the workshop featured participant presentations focusing on individual research projects and questions as well as two keynote speakers followed by Q&A sessions.

The first workshop day on ethics was kicked off with a keynote by Prof. Dr. Timothy Williams (Bundeswehr University Munich) who explored ethical questions and responsibilities arising from social relations with interviewees, research assistants and the state during field research. Special attention was given to aspects related to power, vulnerability, security and data. The keynote led to three major takeaways:

• First, there is no one size fits all approach when thinking about questions related to ethics. Instead, before entering the field, a detailed and context-specific planning process is of utmost importance.
• Second, building and sustaining trust is a key prerequisite in field research.
• Third, ethics is more than an institutional requirement but it is ingrained in and integral to the whole process of research and knowledge production.

Thus, discussions about ethics should be held on a regular basis. Later that day, three participants gave insights in their own research projects, referring to localized ethics, positionality and trust, and to coping strategies when researching sensitive questions and topics.

The second day first started off with a keynote by Ilyas Saliba (WZB/GPPi) on safety aspects before, during and after field research, as well as on digital security. His talk built on both the recently co-edited book “Safer Field Research in the Social Sciences” and his own experiences when doing research in North Africa. Key insights included the importance of a thorough risk assessment of direct and indirect threats and the responsibility of researchers for all involved actors. Two participant presentations then covered local violent conflicts, aggression and road safety, as well as sexual harassment during field research. The workshop closed with an open discussion wrapping up the two days and identifying broad links and overarching questions. 

Thanks to the outstanding speakers and the participants’ willingness to share their experiences and inquiries, the workshop provided very helpful and thought-provoking insights with regard to ethics and safety in the context of field research. Additionally, despite having taken place digitally, all participants and organizers agreed that they succeeded in creating a safe space, which allowed everyone to address and discuss more personal concerns and sensitive topics. Furthermore, the workshop fostered exchange not only within the organizing team prior to the event, but later also within the whole workshop group. There was wide-spread interest amongst organizers and participants to continue this exchange, within a broader setting as well as on a more individual basis, for instance in a topic- or region-centered manner.

We hope that this is only one of many future initiatives discussing the questions of safety and ethics in fieldwork and that cooperation between all involved research institutions will also prosper.