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Events
- From 14 to 16 November, the Career
Days for Doctoral Researchers and Postdocs
will take place at the University of Jena. There you
will get an insight into career paths in science and
learn about strategies for finding a job in business
and society. The workshop will be held in German.
(Illustration above: istockphoto.com)
- From 6 to 8 December the Graduate Academy is
organising the University of Jenas Postdoc Days
2023. During these three days you can join a
welcome event for new postdocs, career talks, a
lunch lecture on the topic of performance evaluation
in science, and information and networking
opportunities. We will publish the complete
programme in October.
- The Thuringian Competence Network Research Data
Management offers a monthly Online Coffee
Lecture. This
series will highlight different software
(tools) for research data management. The next event
is about „Data cleansing and quality improvement
with OpenRefine“ on 18 October. All events are in
German. On 2 November, the Competence Center Digital
Research (Zedif) offers a Digital
Research Clinic. From short scripts to
extensive applications – zedif can help you you to
move your project forward. Consultations are
possible in German as well as in English.
- This year's Start-up
and Innovation Day will be on 26 October
at Trafo (Nollendorfer Straße 30). The day offers
the opportunity to learn more about
entrepreneurship, to network with people interested
in start-ups and to share best practice experiences.
In the evening there will be an exciting Science
Slam with an audience vote. The event is in German.
- From 1 to 3 November the Mental
Health Awareness Days will take place
(Symbolic picture above: istockphoto.com). Over
these three days, you will find various online
offers to inform you and raise your awareness on how
to deal with stressful situations in the context of
your research. In Jena, there will be an on-site
workshop (in German) on "Introduction
to Peer Counselling as a Tool for Mental Relief".
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Get
involved
- In October, wage
negotiations begin
for all employees of the federal states, which
include all university employees. Due to high
inflation, the unions are demanding a significant
increase in wages and are preparing for difficult
negotiations and possible strikes starting from
November. In preparation for the negotiations, the
trade union Ver.di has launched a survey
(only in German) among all employees on the amount
of the necessary wage increases.
- The Network “Motherhood and Academia” has launched
a survey on "Non-discriminatory
funding/announcements". The aim of the survey
is to identify discrimination against parents in
calls for proposals. On this basis, they want to
develop recommendations for funding bodies on how to
improve their announcements. The survey
is open until 30 September and will take about 5-10
minutes to complete.
- The Graduate Academy is currently conducting a survey
on staff and career talks at the University of
Jena. All postdocs were invited via e-mail to
participate. Your participation will help us to
further improve the framework conditions for
postdocs in the academic system. We will raffle 10
book vouchers worth € 50 among all participants.
Participation is possible until 30 October. If you
have any questions, please contact Dr.
Michael Wutzler.
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Announcements
- The Nexus
programme of the Carl Zeiss Foundation
offers postdoctoral researchers the opportunity to
set up their own interdisciplinary research group at
scientific institutions in Baden-Württemberg,
Rhineland-Palatinate or Thuringia. A funding of up
to 1.5 million euros is provided for the position of
group leader and other resources over a time period
of five to six years. The deadline for submitting a
project outline is 13 October 2023.
- The "IMPULSE
– Project" programme of the University
of Jena offers two funding lines: In the first
programme line, projects by young postdocs
(max. three years after the doctorate) are funded,
which should lead to an application for third-party
funding. Funding for assistants as well as material
and travel expenses of up to 10,000 euros can be
applied for. In the second programme line, funding
is provided for projects by advanced postdocs
(max. 6 years after the doctorate) that are intended
to lead to the acquisition of an independent junior
research group. Funding for academic staff, student
assistants, material and travel expenses of up to
20,000 euros can be applied for. The application
deadline for both funding programmes is 31 October.
- The University of Jena has announced the Liberty
Connect Fund as part of its profile line
"Liberty". You can apply for up to 20,000 € to
develop a proposal for third party funding. The
application deadline is 15 October.
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Qualification
offers
There are still vacancies in the following online and
on-site workshops:
- Graduate Academy:
- Lehre Lernen:
- Service Centre for
Research and Transfer (in German):
- Competence Center Digital Research (zedif):
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This
may be of interest to you
- Researchers are increasingly being verbally
attacked and threatened on social media. A newly
established hotline on the "Scicomm-Support"
platform provides a first point of contact for
support in such cases. Telephone counselling is
available daily in German and English from 07.00h to
22.00h on 0157/92344804. (Illustration: Graduate
Academy)
- German academic institutions have reached an agreement
with the publisher Elsevier on a
licensing model: Starting next year, researchers who
use the university libraries will once again be able
to access articles from the world's largest science
publisher. The prerequisite, however, is that enough
universities participate in the agreement. It is not
yet clear whether the University of Jena will
participate – although it is quite likely. This also
demonstrates, as an essay in Times Higher Education
argues,
that libraries with physical book and journal
collections can still have an advantage in times of
digitisation – namely their lasting independence
from commercial publishers who can block access to
digital products in the course of negotiations.
- Podcast are becoming more and more popular. The
Leibniz University now offers a podcast series
especially for postdocs. In "NachwuchsFragen",
changing guests talk about science communication,
qualification paths and everything that is important
in the time after the doctorate. Each episode lasts
between 20 and 50 minutes. There are already 16
episodes – most of them are in German, but two
episodes are in English.
- This year's IgNobel
Prizes were awarded last week. The IgNobel
Prizes honour research projects that use
scientific methods to investigate unusual questions.
This year, for example, the IgNobel Prize for
Medicine was awarded to a project that investigated
how many nasal hairs there are in the left and right
nostrils of dead people (answer: about 120,
age-specific differences remain an open question for
future research). The IgNobel Prize for Literature
went to a study that investigated when the constant
repetition of one word starts to become "peculiar"
for test persons (answer: for two-thirds after the
30th mention).
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News
from University of Jena
- Due to rising energy and
construction costs, the university needs to save
money. Therefore, several cost-cutting measures
were set in June: First, there will be a six-month
freeze on replacing expiring positions. The
extension of expiring contracts for researchers will
only be affected if they change from one career
level to the next (Master to Doctorate or Doctorate
to Postdoc). It was also decided that positions
where the contract ends in the next five years shall
not be filled again, as long as this is justifiable.
The university management had organised an online
discussion on these measures in June. A follow-up
event on the university's financial situation
will be held on 13 October.
- During a reading in lecture
hall 1, the anchorman of Germany’s biggest
national news show, Constantin Schreiber, was
attacked
by a left-wing activist who threw a cake at
him. The reason for the attack was Schreiber's novel
"The Candidate", in which a Muslim woman becomes
chancellor in Germany. The book was criticised as
Islamophobic. Schreiber now
said that he had decided not to comment or
write on the topic of Islam in Germany any more. He
also criticised
the hesitant reaction of the University of Jena. The
university immediately denied
this accusation. To reconcile, the university
invited Schreiber to an event on debate culture in
Germany – which Schreiber accepted.
- The University of
Jena has submitted three
new project proposals to the Excellence
Competition. The university had already
acquired one cluster of excellence in the last round
of applications ("Balance
of the Microverse"). A total of 70 projects
can be funded in the Excellence Competition.
However, all 57 previous clusters of excellence will
also be evaluated; if all of these clusters receive
further funding, there could be only 13 new
excellence projects. A university that has two
clusters of excellence can then also become a
university of excellence. Currently, 11
universities hold this title – in the future,
there could be up to 15.
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Latest
news from Jena city
- The university cooperates
with the municipal energy supplier to provide WLAN
in the city of Jena: This allows access to the
university's Eduroam network at 20 non-university
locations in the city (e.g. at the Markt, Holzmarkt
or Paradiespark). In return, the cooperation makes
it possible to access the WLAN at 120 university
locations with the city's Mein
Jena app. A new feature of the Mein Jena app
will also be a 48-hour ticket for conference guests
that does not require the app to be installed. This
way, laptops can also be connected to the city WLAN.
- At the beginning of September, by a narrow
majority the Jena city council decided
to support the civilian sea rescue ship MARE*GO
by sponsoring it with 10,000 euros (picture above:
David Pichler). The conservative Christian
Democratic Union (CDU), which rejects the
resolution, now wants to examine whether such an
expenditure is legal as a local city.
- On 29 September, the closing
event of the project "Arts and Science"
will take place at the Trafo. Within the framework
of the project, five artists have explored
scientific research topics and created works of art
based on their findings. At the closing event, these
works will be presented to the public for the first
time. Registration is required.
- Since the end of August, the student café
Wagner is open again. It is now
located on the site of the old children's clinic
near the Westbahnhof (address: Kochstraße 2a). The
café had to move because the actual building in
Wagnergasse will be completely renovated.
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