Dr. Cornelia Frank, consultant for doctoral researchers and postdocs, and Laura Busch, coordinator of the mentoring programs, began working at GRADUS in September 2021. In this interview, they speak about their motivation, the challenges of the Graduate Academy, new innovative formats and why early career researchers benefit from mutual exchanges.
Developing networks and using them for one's own professional development is hugely important in terms of career development for doctoral students and postdocs. For Cornelia Frank and Laura Busch, supporting early career researchers is a topic close to the heart. How did this subject become so important to you?
Laura Busch: I took over as coordinator of the mentoring programs at the Graduate Academy GRADUS in September last year.
How to build networks and use them for personal as well as professional development is something that has always interested me. As a humanities graduate, such networks were particularly important when I began my career. But good networking and sharing experience is also of paramount importance in all other disciplines.
At GRADUS we have set ourselves the goal of expanding the existing mentoring programs, developing new innovative formats, and aligning these even more closely with the specific needs of our target groups. More early career researchers should have the opportunity to experience mentoring. This is definitely a great attraction of the job and offers lots of room for personal development.
Dr. Cornelia Frank: I began working at GRADUS in September last year, as a consultant for doctoral researchers and postdocs. Prior to that, I worked at various universities and non-university research institutions in Germany and abroad, both at the university strategy level and in the areas of teaching, research and academic self-administration. Over the last few years, I have become increasingly involved in the fields of business coaching, training, team and concept development.
Supporting students and early career researchers is a topic very close to my heart. I was lucky enough to benefit from a one-to-one mentoring program at the University of Trier many years ago and found the postdoc career development program at the Goethe University in Frankfurt very productive. So, I know from my own experiences how effective such programs can be for those who participate in them.
Furthermore, I am personally fascinated by the phenomenon of transitional spaces: that is, when the present situation is coming to an end and something new is just around the corner, but is not yet concretely tangible, it still needs time to shape and form, and this is often the case in the career development of early career researchers.
One of GRADUS' key concerns is preparing early career researchers for a future career in science, business and society. What is it about this task that particularly fascinates you?
Laura Busch: With regard to my area of responsibility, I can say that mentoring is absolutely an effective and, in my opinion, interesting way to expand one's own professional scope by establishing contacts with experienced people from science, business, and society and their knowledge; especially with regard to the phase after completing a doctorate, or the postdoc phase. That's what we need to support. Mentoring programs also provide an opportunity to meet lots of exciting and committed people, and for that reason alone, it's worth getting involved.
Dr. Cornelia Frank: What appeals to me about the field of "supporting early career researchers" is that I can combine my interest in strategic-conceptual work with my enjoyment of direct support in individual coaching or group workshops. In addition, I find it exciting to deal with different academic target groups, subject cultures, career models and lifestyles.
What particularly excites me is the task of developing a career strategy consulting division with new career strategy programs because I really enjoy working as a "pioneer." Turning ideas into gold for people and institutions and connecting new ideas to existing and proven strategies when developing something new is something I am very passionate about. And my colleagues and I here at GRADUS, can implement such strategies to the benefit of our target groups.
From your point of view, what are the current challenges facing the GRADUS Graduate Academy and how might these be tackled?
Laura Busch: Demand for our services is very high. Our qualification courses are booked up early, consulting appointments are in demand, and interest in additional support measures such as mentoring is also steadily increasing. We want to meet this demand by offering a diverse range of courses that are both high quality, sufficient in number and geared to suit the respective target group. And this balancing act does present a challenge.
In mentoring, we want to reach a larger number of young early career researchers with new formats such as group and peer mentoring, but also by offering programs more frequently and at shorter intervals. At the same time, we want to ensure that the courses we offer are also interesting for international students. In the past, mentees expressed a wish to have more opportunities to meet and exchange experiences. The two mentoring formats mentioned above are particularly well suited for this purpose. In the future, we also want to offer more networking activities such as After Work und ScienceLunch for both mentees and mentors.
With regard to mentoring, the pandemic-related restrictions are certainly the greatest challenge at present. Networking works best through personal contact. This cannot be replaced by any tool, no matter how good it is. At the same time, these tools make it possible to break new ground - and the world keeps turning, after all. We've incorporated such developments into the new formats. In the future, online and onsite courses and offerings will go hand in hand, on-demand programs will emerge, and an online mentoring platform is also under discussion.
Dr. Cornelia Frank: Many early career researchers find the transitions between the academic qualification phases, i.e. from Bachelor's degree to doctorate or from doctorate to the postdoc phase, particularly challenging. The same applies when transitioning to the non-university job market; especially following a doctorate. In my opinion, these transitions are a great challenge for all four target groups of early career researchers, i.e. doctoral candidates, doctoral students, postdocs and junior professors, and the University of Stuttgart's structural and development plan does respond to this. At GRADUS, we are meeting this challenge by developing four new career strategy programs.
„Promotionsfit – machst Du mit?“is aimed at excellent graduates who are interested in research and considering a doctoral degree as a possible career option. The goal is to enable them to make a well-informed decision for or against a doctorate.
„Starter Kit Promotion“ is intended to give first and second-semester doctoral researchers the best possible start in their doctoral degree.
The career strategy program „Black Box Berufung“ is aimed at Postdocs who have already decided to embark upon one of the academic career paths to becoming a professor. The aim of the program is to prepare candidates early for the tenure process.
What do you think will be the biggest challenges in the future?
Dr. Cornelia Frank: Realizing our main goal of training early career researchers for high-ranking positions in science, business and society and thus contributing to ensuring a sustainable future. This is always a challenge due to constant change. We aim to tackle this challenge by offering a multifaceted portfolio of interdisciplinary courses, so that the University of Stuttgart retains its appeal as a hub of higher education, support and research institutions for the all early career researchers, even in the future "War of Talents".
Laura Busch: It is also a challenge to accommodate for such pluralistic career ideas and lifestyles. This is only possible if we adjust the diversity of our formats in terms of their duration, frequency, number of participants, internationality, or time periods, and by advocating the multifunctionality of the doctorate, which, in addition to providing proof of expertise in a particular field, also represents proof of transferable skills that equip students for a variety of professional fields.
What new programs and offerings are available in the areas of career strategy consulting and mentoring at GRADUS?
Dr. Cornelia Frank: the “Career Compass” will be launched in April. This explores the question "What do you want to do after your doctorate?" The aim of the Career Compass is to guide doctoral students who are coming to the end of their degree, and postdocs and help them determine their own personal answers to this question, as well as defining their personal career goals and taking very specific steps towards achieving them.
In a fixed group, doctoral students and postdocs from different disciplines go through their career development process in six modules: from determining their current position and developing their perspectives, to career planning and looking for a job, or applying for person- or project-related third-party funding, designing application portfolios, profile building and visibility, and preparing for selection processes in the science or business sectors.
The Career Compass has two different formats: for early career researchers who wish to embark on an academic career path, and for those who would prefer to pursue a non-university career in business.
For those who are still undecided whether to continue in academia or enter the business or industrial sector after earning their doctorate, we will also be holding a decision-making workshop in March to help students choose the career path that is right for them.
Laura Busch: For the largest group of early career scientists at the university - the doctoral students - we will be offering two new mentoring formats - group mentoring and peer mentoring in the ExploreScience program series. These will be offered annually in the future as required.
Our group mentoring program will begin at the end of February with 27 mentees. This is going to be really exciting! As the name suggests, these meeting will take place in groups. Between four and eight mentees from different disciplines are supervised by an experienced mentor and exchange ideas on previously defined issues in self-organized, structured work meetings once a month. The grouping depends on the chosen career path; academic, business or social. The program runs for six months, which makes it manageable in terms of time, and the fixed, regular meetings allow all participants to plan ahead. Both mentees and mentors are prepared for the mentoring process in advance by our coaches.
In peer mentoring the mentees are trained in peer mentoring methods at the beginning of the process. Afterwards, they advise and supervise each other independently in groups of five to seven people throughout the entire doctoral period - without a mentor. If required, we at GRADUS will of course provide support. A refresher course on mentoring methods is also offered after six months. The first peer mentoring took place last fall. The next round begins in March.
GRADUS is offering mentoring programs again this year, and not just for doctoral students. The next two-year AdvanceScience One-to-One-Mentoring program for postdocs, postdoctoral researchers and early career researchers group leaders, will also be announced soon.
It is worth checking our webseite website regularly.
Our LiveScience program series is especially designed for junior and tenure-track professors. New candidates are invited to reach out to us at any time if they would like to enter one of our mentoring programs. In the future, this should be possible without an appointment and on an individual basis.
To what extent do participants benefit from these new GRADUS programs?
Laura Busch: Our extended course program and more frequent announcements mean that more people can participate in our mentoring programs. Furthermore, the different formats offer greater choice - from program duration to the frequency of meetings and intensity of the mentoring. While some early career researchers primarily seek interdisciplinary exchanges with their own peers, others prefer personal, bilateral contact with a mentor. In this way, we can cover a wide range of needs and offer more flexibility for all parties involved. This also applies for mentors.
Dr. Cornelia Frank: The same applies for both the Career Compass Science and for the Career Compass Business: Knowledge input through expert briefings, self-reflection modules, practically oriented transfer tasks, peer and trainer feedback are combined in such a way that participants leave each module having gained something very specific; such as a skills profile, a road map for career planning, a job application portfolio, a profile on Research Gate or LinkedIn.
Furthermore, the Career Compass Science sensitizes the participants to the fact that scientific careers, in addition to the vagaries and uncertainties rightly attributed to them, are also highly strategic projects that are characterized by certain legalities and influencing factors, such as scientific productivity, visibility and networking, which can be shaped to suit one's own personal goals and preferences with certain strategies and tools. This is exactly what the Career Compass Science equips our PhD students and postdocs for.
For the participants of the Career Compass Business, the focus is on raising awareness of transferable skills and on "translation"; for example, they learn how to communicate their professional and personal skills to potential employers.