On 27 June, the German University Association of Advanced Graduate Training UniWiND released a new recommendation paper on their website. UniWiND is a national network of German universities dedicated to improving conditions for early career researchers. As of now, the paper is only available in German but is said to be released in English soon.
In their statement, UniWiND focuses on improving doctoral supervision, offering structured recommendations to enhance the quality, accountability and training of early-career scientists. The last statement of this kind was published in 2011. An expert council of 11 members has been working on these recommendations since 2023. As federal association of doctoral researchers, we are very interested in their ideas and believe that most of them are excellent recommendations for improving the working and research conditions of early career scientists.
The published paper discusses in detail the current challenges that early career scientists are facing when pursuing their way into academia. We highly recommend to read the detailed explanations. Here, we want to focus on their key recommendations and give the short outlook that in the coming weeks, we are going to publish a detailed commentary on the UniWiND paper from our perspective. The key recommendations they suggest are:
- Better separation of supervision and assessment with simultaneous abolition of the current grading practice
- Adequate funding for doctoral projects over a period of at least 3 years and for at least 65% positions
- Ensuring an elected representation for an effective participation of doctoral researchers in university committees
- Mandatory introduction to the essential aspects of good scientific practice (GSP) for all doctoral researchers (also with regard to artificial intelligence)
- Orientation of more interdisciplinary qualification offers towards the competence requirements of the non-university labour market
- Increased focus on the special needs of international doctoral candidates, particularly in onboarding and offboarding
- Openness to the desired diversity of co-operative doctoral procedures while at the same time guaranteeing all decisive quality standards.
Without a doubt, these recommendations would improve working conditions for early-career scientists and help to address some of the current challenges within the academic system. As the federal association of doctoral researchers, we see the detailed publication by UniWiND as the beginning of a necessary discussion about the future of German academia, and we would like to thank those involved for this excellent recommendations paper. Open dialogue and collaborative effort are needed to implement progressive changes across research institutions nationwide.
Comprised of 87 member institutions, UniWiND serves as a platform for dialogue, policy recommendations, and institutional cooperation. We as Bundesverband have our own history and close connections to the network: our founding meeting was organised in conjunction with the UniWiND meeting in summer 2023.
