equal opportunities

General Assembly 2021

Once a year, all elected PhD representatives of the 96 Leibniz Institutes and Research Museums meet for two days of networking, exchange of best practices and discussions on current and future challenges of doctoral researchers in Germany. This General Assembly is of crucial importance for the Leibniz PhD Network, since it also contains a discussion of the Standing Rules and the election of a new Steering Committee.

Due to the current worldwide crisis, we decided that the Leibniz PhD Network the General Assembly will be held online. It will take place on 23rd and 24th of September. The Assembly will be held over Zoom : the first day of the General Assembly 2021 will be open for all doctoral researchers of the Leibniz Association. We invite all members of the Leibniz PhD Network and our associated networks. Dr. Thomas Kleinsorge from the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors (IfADo) will give a keynote about “Work-life balance: societal, cross-sectional, and longitudinal perspectives ”. There would also be an interesting workshop “Keeping your work life-balance while working on your PhD” delivered by Heli Korhonen from “Scienza”. On the second day, September 24 (10:00-2:00 pm), the representatives of the institutes elect two new spokespersons, a treasurer and one section spokesperson for each section.

If you would like to run for one of the positions, please do not hesitate to let us know in advance as well (you do not need to be a representative at your institute to be elected spokesperson, treasurer or section spokesperson). This is a very exciting opportunity in which you can learn a lot about the inner workings of academia, get to know many active researchers from all over Germany and practice some leadership skills!

If you are interested in getting elected, but you are not a representative at your institute at the time of the General Assembly, we will set up an extra access to the program of Day 2 for you. For any questions and enquiries we can be reached at spokesperson@leibniz-phd.net.

Integration of doctoral researcher representatives at Leibniz institutes. The WG PhD Agreement Part 2/3

Because this work is carried out in German a German Version is provided below.

In order to obtain an overview of how strongly the individual doctoral researcher (DR) representatives are integrated in their institutes; what rights and duties they have accepted, whether they are officially recognized as a group or body of interests, whether they have their own budget and whether there is any representation at all, we contacted the DRs at various Leibniz institutes and asked them for information on this subject by e-mail. On the basis of feedback from a total of 25 institutes, we were able to confirm that the doctoral student representatives in the institutes operate under completely different conditions. For instance, 7 institutes have no official status as a group of DR and only 5 sit on institute committees, of which only one has the right to vote. Only 5 of the registered representatives have a budget for events such as workshops or soft skill courses. It is therefore of great concern to our working group to advocate a firmly integrated DR representation at all institutes, which offers DRs an accepted and recognized platform for participation in shaping the works and activities of the institute.

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Leibniz female Professorship Program

A personal report from Rosa I. Grote-Gálvez, Section Officer C, on  the kick-off event for the Leibniz female Professorship Program “Sie kommen wie berufen”
What is the Leibniz female Professorship Program?

A funding and support program of the Leibniz Association to promote more women in science.

What is the aim of the Leibniz female professorship program?

The program aims to support the successful recruitment of internationally outstanding female scientists and to encourage the appointment to a professorship at an earlier stage in their career. The funding positions are W2 and W3 professorships, which are either permanent or have a tenure track option. The Leibniz Association started this program at its institutes in 2018. The first five female scientists have already been selected and are now being appointed to professors at their universities.

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