Statement of purpose

The Doctoral Council seeks to identify and represent the concerns and interests of doctoral researchers in Hamburg. Our goal is to be available for all doctoral researchers and offer them our support. In addition to providing support, we want to encourage the exchange of thoughts and ideas through networking. Our 3 goals:

Support

As the Doctoral Council, our first goal is to actively support doctoral researchers in Hamburg by calling attention to their problems and concerns and providing them with customized services.

Representation

As the Doctoral Council, our second goal is to bundle the concerns of doctoral researchers in Hamburg and consolidate the issues to best represent their concerns and interests.

Networking

As the Doctoral Council, our third goal is to provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge and experience as well as joint future discussions so that doctoral researchers in Hamburg can learn from one another.

To achieve these goals, we invite you as doctoral researchers to share your wants, needs, and ideas with us.

Further information on the Doctoral Council

The Doctoral Council of the Hamburg Research Academy is composed of doctoral researchers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds who research and teach at various institutes and universities in Hamburg.

Although it is difficult to compare doctoral degree paths across various disciplines, doctoral researchers nevertheless have many problems and concerns in common. The current structural conditions for doctoral work and studies restrict doctoral researchers’ ability and freedom to engage in career development, research, and teaching activities. Doctoral students are often poorly or not clearly represented. Planning certainty and perspectives are lacking as a result of fixed-term employment based on limited-term contracts.

Against this backdrop, our initial objective is to gain a better understanding of the situation of doctoral researchers in Hamburg in order to call attention to their concerns and create targeted, sensible, and useful services for them.

We see an opportunity to accomplish this through the co-determination committees of the Hamburg Research Academy. At the same time, we as the Doctoral Council also want to encourage cross-university networking as well as inter- and trans-disciplinary cooperation agreements. We are convinced that networking and exchange with other doctoral researchers is mutually beneficial and can contribute to the success of doctoral studies. We would therefore like to see the Doctoral Council play a key role in the networking of doctoral researchers in Hamburg and offer all doctoral researchers a forum for interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge and experience and joint discussion on the future. Our mission is therefore to increase the visibility of doctoral researchers in Hamburg.

In this way, the Doctoral Council is taking the opportunity to bundle the concerns of doctoral researchers in Hamburg and consolidate the issues at hand. We are always ready to listen to the concerns of our fellow doctoral researchers and hope this will enable us to best represent their concerns and interests.