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Transkript: Jana Lasser: Hierarchie und Machtmissbrauch

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Welcome to the first episode of the series Science as a Worker.
A short note in advance. In the coming months you will hear the excerpts of
a series of lectures that we record via Zoom.
We ask you to apologize for the quality of the sound.
If you want to be live, you can find all information on our website wzb.eu. Welcome everyone.
It's 1 p.m. It's 1 p.m. We are starting today on the WZB our new series,
our new online discussion format.
And it should actually be a discussion format about the question of science as a employer.
I can say a lot about that.
I have been in science for 50 years now as a student, as a doctoral student,
as a professor, as an institute director, I work in scientific management,
advise many universities.
I think I have a good overview of the changes in these years.
I would say a lot has come to fruition. We have more women.
We have women, even children, when we have professors.
We have ombudspersons. We have fellow students.
We have professors in programs. We have more scholarships than before.
And at the same time, something has changed to the negative,
it has become more difficult.
And that is not only because the labor market has probably become more attractive
outside as workers, and therefore science as an attractive place of work.
Unattractive in comparison, even more insecure than it was in my time,
with even more requirements.
For me it was the papers and I had to show a little bit of didactic competence.
But certainly not yet transfer, not yet in the press, not yet much coaching, not yet this and that,
what you have to do today and what you have to do on the one hand,
but which on the other hand does not count at all or seems to count when we
want to let ourselves be called.
It is a very insecure labor market,
it is a very hard labor market, it is a labor market and a labor area where
more and more challenges are being faced and where there is more and more pressure
when you think of the plagiarism hunters and much more.
Therefore, today's question is probably more urgent than ever,
even if I have spoken about the many improvements.
Which actually make up a good scientific life and how it can be anchored institutionally,
so that science as an employer becomes more attractive again,
so that, as with the latest surveys,
not even people who are on the tenure track say that they think about taking distance from science.
And that's exactly what we do. We do it in a loose order, but always in this format, 45 minutes.
We do it on very different topics and today we start with a very important topic,
namely the topic of power abuse in science.
This topic will be dealt with first of all with a presentation by Ms.
Lasse and there could be no one better than her. And she will be moderated by Dr.
Corinne Heven, a co-leader of the P-Stab of the Berlin Center for Science,
who will take over this alternately with Dr.
Gregor Hochmann, who will take over one of the next areas.
I will now hand over to Corinne Heven and I am very happy that you are all there.
I am very happy that Ms. Lasser found the time to speak. And of course,
I am also very much looking forward to your questions, which are then also moderated by Corinne Hebb.
Thank you very much, Ms. Allmendinger, for this great introduction.
And of course, a warm welcome to Jana Lasser, who we are allowed to welcome
as the first expert in our new webinar series.
We are very happy that you are with us today and that you will talk and discuss
the topic of power and power abuse with us. will talk to us and discuss.
As you can see, we were not afraid to get right into this series with a very complex topic.
And the more I am happy when I see the number of participants here,
the more I think we have come across great interest.
Since we have little time and I will give my best to pick up your and your questions
from the chat at the end, I will first briefly introduce Jana Lasser before
I hand over the word to her.
Jana Lasser was a PhD student in physics in Göttingen and was then a postdoc
at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna and at TU Graz.
She is currently a representative professor of computational science at RWTH Aachen.
And from May, we can certainly congratulate professors for data analysis at the University of Graz.
As you already announced,
I am going to present in English because power abuse in academia is a topic
that is not limited to German-speaking academics in Germany.
And I want it to be as inclusive as possible.
I will post a link to my slides at the end of my talk, so no need to take screenshots.
They will be available to you.
So, yeah, as already announced, why am I here today talking about power abuse in academia?
It all began while I was still a PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for
Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen.
I thankfully was never a victim of power abuse myself.
I always had very nice and caring supervisors.
But during my time as a PhD student, I was also a PhD representative.
And in 2018, I was the spokesperson of the Max Planck PhD.
At representing the over 4,000 PhD students of the Max Planck Society.
And it was in this year, 2018, when there were two high-profile cases of power
abuse in the Max Planck Society that got a lot of media attention.
And in the aftermath of that, I had many conversations with victims of power
abuse that saw themselves in these cases in the media reports and contacted
me and wanted to talk about their experiences with me.
So I talked to maybe 15 or 20 individuals, and I started to see some systematic
patterns in characteristics,
properties of the academic system that make it easier for these cases to occur. care.
And these experiences led for once to a white paper that I wrote together with
my colleagues from the PhD representation on power abuse and conflict resolution.
And then it also led to the foundation of the Network Against Power Abuse in
Science in 2021, where I'm currently also a board member.
And in this network, we are advising people in difficult situations that are
are experiencing power abuse, and we are also trying to raise awareness and
propose potential solutions.
And that is the role that I have here today.
So, what am I going to talk to you about today? It's a short time,
I only have 20 minutes, so I'm trying to keep it brief.
In the beginning I'll talk about what I call power abuse in the wild.
So, I'll show you a few cases that occurred roughly in that way to really show
you what I'm talking about when I say power abuse.
I will then try to make these individual cases a bit more systematic and try
to explain the various power differentials that we find in the academic system
and how they foster an environment in which power abuse can occur more easily.
And then I'll end with suggestions for solutions what we can do together to
prevent power abuse and to deal with cases of power abuse if they occur.
So what am I talking about when I say power abuse in academia?
The following cases have been described to me by people who have experienced them.
I've changed small details so people will stay anonymous.
But these are things that really happened in Germany.
So the first case deals with extortion of labor.
This is something that we see a lot, especially happening to junior academics.
We have a situation where we have a doctor researcher after four years.
They have enough publications for a cumulative thesis according to the rules of their university.
But their supervisor wants them, the doctor researcher, to produce another publication
before they let them finish their PhD.
So they simply refuse to sign the relevant documents that are necessary to complete the PhD. Okay.
As a consequence, the PhD degree is delayed, the working contract expires,
the doctoral researcher keeps working on unemployment money,
they have a falling out over the situation, and in the end the PI also declines
to write them a letter of recommendation.
The doctoral researcher in the process does contact the ombudsperson,
but the ombudsperson does not intervene because they do not feel responsible for the situation.
And the outcome of the whole situation is that yes the doctoral researcher receives
their degree after working on unemployment money for a while but their academic
career is over they do not have a good letter of recommendation and they leave
academia for a job in industry in the end.
A second case deals with what I call neglect so we have a situation where we
have an international postdoc with a very short contract duration but a contract
extension is promised and we have a a PI and a lab assistant that are a married couple.
The postdoc wants to take a vacation to visit their family, but the PI wants
the work to be done quickly.
So there is a falling out over this conflict of interest.
As a result, there is no further support by the lab assistant for the experiments of the postdoc.
The lack of support and also materials in the lab lead to bad results or a lack of results.
And because of these bad results, the contract is not extended as was promised in the beginning.
The works council or ombudsperson are not contacted because the postdoc simply
doesn't know that they exist or would be responsible for the situation.
And the outcome is that the postdoc experiences a great deal of frustration
and pressure with the situation, wastes a lot of time on things that do not
end up working out and ultimately leaves the country.
And the third case is a situation that leads also to bad scientific practice.
So we have a situation where we have a very famous PI, many doctoral researchers,
very risky projects with very short contract durations.
And an international doctoral researcher coming to Germany with a young family.
Contract extensions are tied to producing positive results. And the doctor researchers
coming from a third party country, their visa is tied to their work contract.
As a consequence, the doctor researcher ends up working 70 hours plus a week,
doesn't take any vacation in an effort to produce these positive results that
would lead to an extension of the contract.
Again, the almost person is not contacted in this case. case,
the doctor researcher knows about them, but he or she doesn't trust them because
the person themselves is in a dependent situation on the PI.
So there's a lack of trust here. And the outcome is immense psychological pressure
on the doctor researcher and also sloppy science with very questionable positive results.
So, after showing you these three
cases, let's try to define a bit more general what abuse of power is.
So I want to make clear that having or using power in itself is not a bad thing.
It is necessary to effectively lead an organization and also to conduct research.
But when using power, one needs to consider what are the consequences for the
person that is using the power and for the persons that are affected by the use of power.
And the more the person that uses their power is acting for their own benefit,
while damaging other people in an illegitimate way, we are talking about abuse of power.
And the conundrum here is that such unethical behavior can be legal and it can
even be in the interest of academic institutions as long as it leads to positive
or flashy results and doesn't lead to backlash,
for example, from the media. Yeah.
So are we talking about singular cases here? Is it really just one or two bad
apples abusing their power and a few cases reaching the media? And I would argue not.
There are a few studies coming up now in the last years that show that we are
not talking about singular cases here.
So this is data that I show you from the German Association of Psychology that
asks their members how often they witnessed or experienced harassment at work.
And they define harassment as regular behavior that creates an intimidating,
hostile, socially isolating, discriminating or offensive working environment.
And we can see here that around 10% say that they either witnessed or experienced
harassment work regularly, and another 12 to 15% often.
And over 60% at least experienced this sometimes.
So we are really talking about many people here. It's not just singular cases.
The DGPS also asked their respondents in the survey whether they perceived this
experience or witnessed harassment as contingent on hierarchy.
And the vast majority of the respondents said that yes, they perceived it as
either completely or mostly contingent on hierarchy in the situation.
A similar picture, a consistent picture, is shown by an international survey
that Nature Careers did in 2020,
where they asked international postdocs whether they experienced power imbalances
or bullying or gender discrimination, racial discrimination at work.
And a whopping two-thirds of the respondents report that they experience power
imbalances and bullying and 40% gender discrimination, out of which 90% are women.
They're not exactly power abuse, but related.
So why is this the case? Why is this happening so often?
And I would argue that academia as a work environment has some properties that
facilitate these abusive situations and make them easier to occur.
Because there are a number of power differentials that early career researchers are subjected to.
The first one that comes up very, very often is the contract,
the employment contract.
Oftentimes, PIs single-handedly decide about contract durations and also about contract extensions.
And for people from non-EU countries, this is exacerbated by the fact that their
visa depends on the working contract.
Then there's, of course, the power of assessment. In Germany and also oftentimes in Austria,
PIs are still responsible for both the supervision as well as for the final
assessment of the PhD project, which compounds the power that they have over their PhD students.
A third power differential, maybe a bit less obvious, is reputation.
So in academia, reputation is the foundation of a career.
And reputation is very easily destroyed by somebody spreading bad news,
bad information about an early career researcher among their peers, among their network.
And it's codified in the letter of recommendation that a PI is supposed to write
their supervisee in the end of the project.
And the fourth dimension that I think is overlooked very often is institutional knowledge.
So we have a very high and intended fluctuation of non-tenured researchers.
And as a result, they often know much less about their institution and also
their rights as employees than their supervisors,
which then hinders them in seeking help and improving their situation if they
come into an abusive situation.
As a result, many people
seem to experience power abuse in academia and research also shows that people
do not only experience academia as enabling such unethical behavior but actively
encouraging and incentivizing it by the incentive structure that we have with
the high pressure to produce publications, to produce flashy results.
This is compounded by the fact that the discovery of of abusive behavior is
very unlikely because of missing compliance mechanisms, conflicts of interest
with the existing compliance mechanisms, and also fear of reporting.
So many of the people that experience these situations do not report them because
they fear retaliation if they reported them.
As a result, the punishment of abusive behavior is even more unlikely because
institutions themselves do not have incentives to punish their abusive behavior
as long as the abusers are producing nice results and are star scientists.
As a result of these incentive structures, studies show that people that are
predisposed to abusing their power are drawn to academia,
and once there, they are more likely to make it to powerful positions than other people.
Now, I'm not arguing that every PI, every professor is abusing their power and is a bad person.
It's just that on average, more people that tend towards this behavior end up
in leadership positions in academia.
Now, when I say this, I oftentimes get the question of, is it really just the supervisors?
And I have to say overwhelmingly, yes.
Yes. So this is, again, the study from the German Society for Psychology,
because they so very few studies ask who the perpetrator is in these situations. They did.
And the study shows that for a witness or experienced harassment at work,
it's over two thirds that report
that this behavior originated from a supervisor or a senior colleague.
Yes, there are cases that come from students or junior colleagues or colleagues
on the same level, but the overwhelming majority of these cases do come from superiors.
So you might now ask, OK, we see this abusive behavior, but we do have mechanisms
in place that are supposed to deal with this and prevent it.
We have ombudspeople, we have works councils, we have anti-discrimination officers.
The issue with these mechanisms is that very few cases are reported in the first
place. This is now also from the DGPS, but it's also from a survey that we did
while I was still in the PhD representation of the Max Planck Society.
Only about a quarter of the experience that witnessed harassment cases are reported.
And I did not talk about this here today, but this also pertains to cases of
scientific misconduct, where the number of reported cases is even lower.
Why is this the case? Well, we asked people that did report their cases whether
they actually experienced retaliation from reporting.
And we find that one out of 10 people experience or face negative consequences
as a direct result of their reporting.
And people that do report also experience the institutional support that they
receive after reporting as lacking.
And given this background, I do understand that people are very hesitant to
report their experiences if there is such a substantial chance of facing negative consequences.
And also the people that do report reported that they have very low satisfaction
with the outcome of their reports.
Only 10 to 20 percent of the people that did report say that they mostly are
completely satisfied with the outcome of their report.
So as a summary, I try to argue the power abuse in academia is rampant and not
limited to singular cases.
We see that depending on the survey,
between 15% and 25% of academics are affected by harassment at work.
The academic system, with its many power differentials, systematically fosters
the abuse of power, and the existing mechanisms to resolve conflicts are oftentimes
not effective, not trusted, or not known.
And that they're not known or not trusted.
I know primarily from talking to the people that came and asked for help in
the network against power abuse.
So this we see in many cases that the existing mechanisms are simply not known or not trusted.
So, ending on a hopefully a bit more positive note, what can we do?
And here, it's a complex problem. So, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Academic system is complex. So, I'm proposing a multifaceted approach here.
I think one of the most effective things we could do, but also probably the
most difficult one, is to reduce the power differentials that we have in academia.
If the power differentials are reduced, the opportunities to abuse power is also reduced.
And here I again want to reiterate that power in itself is not problematic,
only its concentration in a single person is.
So we could start by separating supervision and assessment of dissertation projects,
as is the practice in many other countries.
We can also establish thesis committees that supervise doctoral researchers.
So people other than the primary supervisor that contribute to the supervision
that are independent of the primary supervisor.
As a rule, the duration of working contracts should equal the duration of a
PhD project to get rid of the situations where a person depends on the contract extension.
Because this is very often this creates a prime opportunity for putting pressure
on the early career researchers and abusing power.
And positions after their PhD should be tenured as the rule rather than the exception.
A second thing that I think needs to be done is to support victims that find
themselves in situations of power abuse.
What we see right now is that the victims are currently mostly left to fend
for themselves and are very unhappy with the institutional support they get. So what can we do?
First of all, institutional emergency mechanisms that are supposed to help in
these cases need to be specified and widely communicated.
There needs to be mechanisms established to change supervisors in case something goes wrong.
And this needs to be done before something bad happens, not when the case has already come to pass.
Also, access to data and devices required to complete projects and authorship
of publications needs to be discussed. there needs to be rules in place that
regulate how this works.
And on top of that, access to independent and free counselling and legal advice
needs to be ensured for victims of power abuse.
Along the same lines, so helping victims, I think there needs to be a professionalization
of the processes that deal with these cases.
So right now, there are many people
that work in these conflict resolution mechanisms that do a very good job.
So I don't want to discount their work. But what we see systematically is that
the contact points that are responsible for handling cases of power abuse are little known. own.
There are many, and it's very unclear who is responsible in what case.
Oftentimes, they don't feel responsible for that specific case.
They think it's another contact point that is responsible, and they lack the
resources and the power to act effectively within the organization.
So what can we do? Contact points need to be easy to reach and able to act independently.
A best practice that I've seen is to establish a one-stop shop where people
with any conflict can go, and this one-stop shop then cooperates with other
institutional mechanisms and tries to make contact and has an eye on the process.
Process steps need to be communicated transparently towards all affected people,
and they need to be binding deadlines that are followed.
Because what I see very often is institutions just not following up on these
cases in the hope that the affected people leave the institution anyways because
they are on a short-term contract.
And lastly, documentation and quality control processes need to be established
for these contact points.
And then there's, of course, the case of demanding good leadership.
So as long as there are incentives for unethical leadership behavior, it will occur.
So what can we do? Establish assessment criteria beyond papers and grants that
also have to do with good leadership.
Establishing a robust feedback culture, including exit interviews,
that allows leaders and institutions to learn because nobody is born a great leader.
We don't learn this when we learn to become good scientists.
We don't learn how to be a good leader and lead a group.
So we need mechanisms that allow us to get feedback and improve our leadership.
Also along these lines, mandatory leadership trainings can help and should be established.
And in the case of bad leadership, serious consequences need to be imposed.
And this is my last slide. So these measures I've now suggested,
many of them are hard to implement.
Many of them will take a lot of work and a lot of time to get implemented in our current system.
So I wanted to end with a slide on measures for self-help.
So if you are currently experiencing such a situation or you know somebody who
is, here's things you can do.
First and most importantly, make sure you're safe. So recognize that you're
in an extreme situation that threatens your mental and physical health,
and it's okay to ask for help.
Secondly, secure evidence. Make timely, detailed, and written documentation
of what you experience, and even better, ask witnesses to join meetings.
Get informed about your rights as an employee. Relevant material is employment
law, sexual self-determination, Now also whistleblower protection, copyright,
general equal treatment law, so the AGG, and get legal insurance before something happens.
By the way, if you join a union, you get legal insurance for employment disputes.
Seek information about internal resources, ombudspeople, equal opportunities
officers, works councils, mediation, psychological counselling.
Link, use them if you find them trustworthy.
And lastly, act strategically. And I hate to say this, but it can be useful
to reflect your dependencies.
And for example, finish your PhD degree first and then report.
And with this, I want to end. I'm happy to take questions.
As I said, my slides are online. I'm also posting the link in the chat.
Thank you very much, Jana. Vielen, vielen Dank, Jana, für diese tollen Input.
Bei mir im Chat haben sich schon ganz viele Fragen angesammelt.
Deswegen würde ich sofort losgehen.
Würde dir nur kurz die Gelegenheit geben, wenn du magst, nochmal über das Netzwerk
zu sprechen und das kurz vorzustellen.
And then for everyone who's posted questions in english it's fine as well i'll
take them in english but perhaps you would like to say a bit about the network before we go ahead,
a very good point thank you for giving me the opportunity
so the network against power abuse and science is a
network of uh it's independent of
institutions it's a network of people um that
want to help other people that find themselves
in in these uh difficult situations we come
from all places in academia we are students
early career researchers professors people in
administrative roles people that coordinate and phd
graduate programs what is common with all of us is that we've seen a lot and
we know our way around things in the academic landscape so oftentimes we can
help people find ways to improve the situation find ways to deal with what they're experiencing.
Yeah, if you are interested in joining, we are very open right now,
we are 15 people happy to onboard new members.
If you are interested in receiving our help, feel free to drop us an email.
I'll share the link to our website
where you can learn more about us and also learn how to contact us.
Okay, I've got two questions for you already. First one, what advice can you
give prospective PhD students or doctoral students to reduce the risk of power abuse,
especially with regard to the context of doing the PhD and the supervision situation?
I assume that means that oftentimes a person has the same, assesses the PhD,
but also supervises the PhD. Do you have any concrete advice for new or coming doctoral students?
Yeah, I have two pieces of advice. So if you haven't decided on a position yet,
make sure you interview the group of your prospective supervisor.
So ask them to put you in contact with people they are currently supervising
or that they have supervised in the past.
If they are reluctant to make this contact and let you talk to their supervisees
without Without them, that's a serious red flag.
And if you get in contact with these people that are supervised by a prospective
PI and you get any indication of conflicts or difficulties or bad supervision,
do take it very seriously and really reconsider taking that PI as your supervisor.
If you have designed your contract and you started your PhD,
do take things like a thesis committee seriously.
I know it's oftentimes sold as this is another administrative burden that we have to do.
And I just, you know, I found two people. Please just sign here.
This is not your thesis committee.
Take this very seriously. Make sure you pick people that you would trust in
the event that your primary supervisor does not work out for you anymore because
they fall sick or because you have a breakdown of the relationship.
Invest a bit of time and really make sure you find good people.
So this is the two pieces of main advice I have.
Thank you. And maybe just a short follow-up question on this.
Do you have any immediate hands-on advice for current doctoral students?
I assume someone is asking perhaps what you can do if you're already finding
yourself in a quite difficult situation.
I mean, this is very situation dependent and depends on the escalation level of the situation.
So if it's not very escalated, I advise you to try talk to your supervisor,
because oftentimes we don't realize we're doing something wrong.
But there are different people with different supervision styles that work better
or worse for other people.
And oftentimes it helps to just transparently communicate what you need and
what you would rather not have in your supervision relationship. relationship.
If it's already in a situation where you cannot really talk to your supervisor
in that way anymore, then you can try to look for institutional mechanisms that help you.
So as I said, there is the ombudsperson that goes in the direction of good scientific
practice, but according to the rules of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG,
good supervision of early career researchers is a matter of good scientific practice.
So the ombudsperson is is actually responsible to deal with bad supervision relationships as well.
If it's more the case of an employment contract thing, then the Works Council
or Personalrat, so in German Betriebsrat or Personalrat, might be good contact points.
If it has to do with gender discrimination, sexual harassment,
equal opportunities officer.
If it has to do with disability, Every research institution also needs to have
a person responsible for issues that have to do with disabilities.
And if you cannot find a good place in your institution to talk to,
there is of course the Network Against Power Abuse in Science.
But there is also institution-independent mechanisms like the German Ombudsman, that is an ombudsman.
How do you say, ombudsman, yeah, that is acting independently of a specific
institution and also does take cases.
So this is just a very fast walkthrough of what's available in Germany.
Thank you. I'm getting more and more questions. I would suggest people who are
interested in joining or supporting the network maybe to get in touch with you directly.
There have been a few mentions here in the chat. There is a really interesting
question I think personally.
We've We've been talking a lot about structural reasons why this is more likely
to happen perhaps in this environment that we're working in than in others.
But also, of course, there's one measure that we haven't talked so much about
yet is training and making training, training for especially for those in leadership positions.
And somebody has asked the question I just formulated in German.
I quite like this question. What do you think, Jana?
Well, I mean, I think a very good argument is if you do get a person that is
abusing their power, this can be very negative for your institution.
So we've seen that if these things do reach the media, it's not very pleasant
for the institutions that are affected.
I've also seen that it's for young people, young PIs coming into leadership
positions, it's actually a selling point if your institution does offer like
a structured leadership training and sets itself as a place where good leadership is valued.
I just experienced this personally. I just signed my work contract as a professor
at the University of Graz, and I did have to sign that I have to do this mandatory
leadership training in, I think, my first two years. So it seems to be possible.
And if I may add, it seems to be the key to make it mandatory,
because I've just also joined a training for leadership persons,
but that was a self-selective group of people who wanted to do this voluntarily.
And so, and of course, that makes, it's still good, but it makes a difference.
Okay, here's another question.
And the question is, what are the measures we can take against supervisors regularly
showing power abuse or problematic behavior?
Can you prevent them from getting new PhD students?
I mean, so I would argue that this should be one of the consequences that are
imposed if this, you know, shows up regularly.
So I think also in terms of consequences for misbehavior, there needs to be an escalation ladder.
So if this happens once, maybe it's a good idea to have a mandatory training
and maybe appoint somebody who
can be reached by the early career researchers in case of bad behavior.
If this occurs multiple times or is really extreme, then prohibiting a person
to take on new early career researchers, I think, is a measure that should be taken by institutions.
Institutions, it's difficult because it touches employment law of the professors.
And if they have been granted so and so many PhD positions, or if they bring
in a project that pays for PhD positions, it's not easy to prevent them from doing that.
But I think it's the responsibility of institutions to establish frameworks that allow for this,
Establish a code of conduct that says if you violate your duties as a supervisor too often,
then we do have the right to prevent you from supervising new PhD students.
Okay, great. Thank you. One question. You mentioned that the Works Council might
be a first point of contact for certain situations and challenges.
But somebody is asking, is that really the right point to turn to the right
people to turn for when more long term structural changes are needed?
Because then you'd probably need other actors as well, not just the Works Council, right?
Yeah definitely long-term structure
changes difficult point i mean i
guess on the highest level you can start voting for parties that do propose
changes in the academic system on the more institutional level i think it's
a very good idea to strengthen representations representations.
If there is no PhD representation yet, make one.
If there is one, join it, lobby for improvements on the local level.
I also do think that data is a very, very good tool.
So if you do have the feeling that your institution has a problem,
run a survey, try to make this problem, you know, put it in numbers to have a good argument.
I have experienced that leadership people in the academic sector do tend to react well to numbers.
So if you can tell them, look, 20% of our people do have issues with abusive
supervisors, that's a serious problem for an academic manager,
and they are rather likely to do something.
Yeah, that's, I think, the short advice I can give.
Thank you, Jana. We've had another
question because we both mentioned our respective leadership trainings.
Yes, they are honest. And yes, these kinds of things are discussed.
But I would just ask the person in the chat to address, you know,
feel free to email me or Jana directly.
And then we can give you more information because we're not doing the same leadership training.
But if you're interested in that topic, then obviously just feel free to get in touch by email.
Then another question. We've got three more minutes. One person is asking,
isn't the reason that a lot of the students,
PhD students and also postdocs, only spend a short amount of time at an institution
or also change a lot around across different institutions?
They don't actually know where to go to. Again, for the WZB,
everybody who's here today from the WZB itself, I'm more than happy to help with that.
And I'm sure my colleagues as well. But do you think generally speaking,
that might be a reason that people simply do not know who they can talk to?
Yes, definitely. So I think this is a structural problem because of the high
fluctuation, but it's something that, you know, can be addressed.
I'm just onboarding into a new institution and I have to click through a mandatory
data protection thing that takes 45 minutes.
I still remember my onboarding when I joined my Max Planck Institute.
It was a very extensive training on not looking into the laser and not eating
mercury in the lab. Why not add information about contact points in case of conflict?
Information about counselling services in case of mental health problems.
That's something I have not touched upon at all today, but this is also something
that I think is in the responsibility of the employer to inform their employees about.
I know that there are yearly staff gatherings. This is also a good place to
reiterate where the contact points are and who is responsible for what in your institution.
So I do think that these mechanisms of communication exist.
They just need to include the mechanisms that deal with power abuse as well.
And as I already said, I think it's a good idea to have a one-stop shop that
is just an umbrella conflict resolution thing that then connects to the various
other mechanisms like Ombudspeople, Works Council, Equal Opportunities Office, and so on.
Because then the single person does not need to know what exactly is responsible for what.
There is simply a one-stop conflict resolution shop that can be approached and
they will then help you find the relevant mechanisms within the institution
and also help you navigate the associated processes.
We've got time for one last question. I mean, we could go on for a long time,
I'm sure, but I think this is a great question.
I'm very curious about your answer.
Somebody is asking, what control mechanisms can be established in recruitment
procedures to prevent hiring those people, I assume that means,
who are likely to abuse their power once they are in the job?
Um i mean hiring commissions
need to care about leadership qualifications as well
so i think that there's several things that can be done several ideas that are
around request a letter of recommendation from a junior person that this person
supervised that's for one um do ask uh in the in the previous place of employment
uh how they behave themselves do not hire people that that raised serious red flags.
So I have heard about hiring procedures at very prestigious institutions that
did ask the former institutions of their prospective candidate.
And the previous institution said, do not hire, very toxic person.
But sadly, that person was also very famous and had lots of third party funding.
And the institution did not care and hired them anyways.
And then of course, the behavior just continued at the new institution.
So I think this is really a matter
of recalibrating what we value when hiring
people do we just count papers and third-party funding and
everything else teaching leadership is just yeah nice to have if it's there
and if it's not there well it's not that important or do we actually perceive
it on the same level because professors are leadership leaders most of what
we do on a daily basis is dealing and managing with our employees.
And that, I think, needs to be reflected in the importance of these leadership
skills in the hiring procedures.
Thank you, Jana. I wish I could continue. I can see I can and to all of you
as well. I can see that there are more questions.
I'm very sorry that we do not have more time to answer them,
but I'm sure that you can direct Jana, contact Jana directly.
And from me I can see that Jutta Allmendinger just joined again I can see her
so I'll leave the last word to you but I just want to say a big thank you to
everyone who joined a very big group and we are very happy and we hope you enjoyed
and possibly learned something today as well,
Thank you very much for the invitation.