Navigating Successfully in Academia

Opening: My Goals, My Status, My Peers

This two-day workshop sets the tone and the pace for the journey ahead: You will reflect on your goals, you will meet interesting persons, and you will find ways to mutually support each other- Also, you will acquire communication skills that help you in all these areas. During these two days in October, …

you will meet your peers in person and find ways to mutually support each other (think peer coaching!)
you will learn about communication basics and strategies that help you deal with typical challenges
you will work on concrete cases so that you feel safe in challenging situations.
Cases: Before the workshop, Sylvia will collect topics that you would like to deal with. Maybe you want to learn how to say No. Or maybe you want to work on your visibility. Or maybe you feel that a colleague does not like you. No matter what: We will start working on situations that really concern you.

Trainer: Dr. Sylvia Löhken is an expert in introverted and extroverted communication. With her experience as a scientist and as a manager in a large international organisation, Sylvia Löhken knows important working environments of her clients from her own experience: politics and administration, business and research, management and consulting as well as Japanese, American and German communication. As a communications expert, she regularly supports scientists preparing for the final rounds of ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants for German research funding institutions, among others.

Date: Wednesday, 05.10.2022 and Thursday 06.10.2022

Manage your Group

The transition from postdoc to group leader, from being a member of somebody else’s group to becoming the head, is an exhilarating, yet challenging experience. This hands-on workshop offers practical advice and techniques for establishing effective leadership, identifying needs, setting goals and managing expectations, recruiting and developing research staff, and reviewing progress. It also addresses key aspects of self[1]management and developing yourself as PI. Overall, the workshop aims to raise critical awareness of how to build, lead and support a productive research team.

By participating in the workshop, you will be better equipped to: 

• understand what makes an effective research leader, manager, and mentor,
• build a talented team with a variety of individual behaviours, experiences, and skills, 
• create a welcoming and invigorating research environment, 
• set out vision and direction for your research group, 
• establish yourself as an independent researcher

Trainer: Dr. Thomas Koch is a research management consultant and certified business trainer and coach. He provides hands-on workshops and individual guidance for researchers to realise their research ideas and career objectives. He also supports higher education institutions and research consortia in implementing strategic initiatives and preparing grant proposals. Holding a PhD in physical chemistry from the UK, he builds on 10 years of international experience as a researcher and 12 years of professional experience as a research manager and senior administrator at universities in Bochum (RUB) and Munich (LMU).

Date: Tuesday, 22.11. - Wednesday, 23.11. 2022

Part 1: Applying for a Professorship and Appointment Negotiations
For academics, applying for a professorship represents crucial interfaces in their careers. Especially those who want to apply for a professorship for the first time have many questions about this special procedure. This compact workshop offers helpful information on the individual steps of the application process.

• The application
• The mock lecture
• The interview with the appointment committee
• Preparing for the appointment negotiations
• Conducting the negotiations for a first appointment

Part 2:  The Professorship. Rights and Duties
Professors have a special position in the German academic system: They are usually civil servants for life and at the same time the keepers of the academic freedom which is a part in the German constitution. Due to this dual position, the law governing the employment of professors differs considerably from that of other civil servants. Knowledge of the special position, the rights and duties is of great practical importance for first-time professors, but also for those already in office. The workshop serves as an orientation on the rights and duties as a university professor well beyond the "first 100 days" in office.

Trainer: Katharina Helmig, lawyer for higher education and civil service law in the DHV (Deutscher Hochschulverband)

Dates: Thursday, 12.01.2023 and Friday 13.01.2023

Micropolitics in Higher Education

Universities are expert organisations that differ from other hierarchical organisations in crucial ways. The proportion of independent experts who are at least seemingly independent of the top management is comparatively large. This gives the impression, that it is mainly expertise that gets you further up the career ladder. This, however, is a fallacy because at a certain point, usually in the postdoc phase, the rules of the game change fundamentally. Hierarchical, mostly male-dominated power games and micropolitical activities gain importance. Nothing works anymore without strategic networking and good self-marketing. Those who bury themselves in their expertise and neglect their network of contacts and name recognition experience a rude awakening when it comes to succeeding in an appointment procedure or obtaining a full professorship. Assertive and defensive strategies, alliances and thick skin are essential. This course focuses on power mechanisms in hierarchical organisations with special attention to the particularities of an expert organisation, especially a university.

Focal points:

• Recognising and dealing with power plays
• Building a strategic network
• Impression management strategies to enhance self-marketing and presentation skills

Trainer: Sibyl Schädeli is an ethnologist, lic.phil. from the University of Bern, Management MAS from the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and Univ. Leuphana Lüneburg, and a certified coach ICF-PCC. She has many years of leadership experience at the University Hospital Basel, in the Swiss Federal Administration in leading positions as HR- Business Partner and in leadership development. She offers workshops, coaching and consulting at all German and French-speaking universities and several research institutes in Switzerland and in the Foreign Affairs Department of the Swiss Federal Administration, among others. Her main areas of expertise are leadership development and coaching, leadership, power games, women's careers and self-management.

Date: Tuesday, 21.03.2023 and Wednesday, 22.03.2023

Closing: My Life, My Career, My Moves

In the HRA Career Program, your journey comes to an end. At the same time, your real journey continues: What lies ahead in your career? What does it mean for your strategies? How do you create visibility in all the right places? How do you go on with the peers who have walked beside you in the program?

This workshop provides space, time, and methods for pondering all these questions. You will have time to reflect on what you have experienced in the program. There will also be reflections on situations you would like to cope with. A special focus lies on strategies for your future success: alone and with the persons you trust.

Last but not least, there will be ways to say good-bye. 

Trainer: Dr. Sylvia Löhken is an expert in introverted and extroverted communication. With her experience as a scientist and as a manager in a large international organisation, Sylvia Löhken knows important working environments of her clients from her own experience: politics and administration, business and research, management and consulting as well as Japanese, American and German communication. As a communications expert, she regularly supports scientists preparing for the final rounds of ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants for German research funding institutions, among others.

Date: Tuesday, 13.06.2023 and Wednesday, 14.06.2023