On the Way to Professorship: Royal Path or Risky Tour?

CRC 1182 Career Development

On September 17, the CRC 1182 offered a career development workshop for early career scientists from PhD-Candidates and post doctorate researchers to young principal investigators, organized and conducted by professional human resources consultant Ute Jülly together with PI Ute Hentschel Humeida of the CRC. An international panel consisting of Nicole Webster, Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Suhelen Egan from the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences & Centre for Marine Bio-Innovation at the University of New South Wales in Sydney and Arne Traulsen, Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, shared their views and experiences on essential requirements for a successful academic career – possibly but not necessarily leading to a professorship.

Provided with valuable first hand information, the junior researchers had the opportunity to seek advice on their personal career situation and development options. Taking into account important aspects such as the importance of a solid network, a timely decision for a career in academia or industry, the influence of international experience, the setting up of an indivual research agenda and lab or the balance of work, life and family.

The workshop is part of a series of events that form a tailor-made career development initiative for the CRC 1182, which Jülly conducts together with speaker and PI’s of the center. The progamme is based on an initial needs-analysis that takes into account the different personal situations and seeks to offer individual counselling for each of the participating researchers.