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Events
- This year’s Three-Minute
Thesis Competition will take place on 26
February. In this competition, doctoral researchers
from all disciplines present their dissertation
topics in English – in no more than three minutes
time! The „Three Minute Thesis“ is an
internationally renowned competition that is
conducted at numerous universities around the world.
It starts at 19.00h in the Rosensäle (Fürstengraben
27). (Photo: Graduate Academy)
- Love
Data Week is taking place worldwide from
10 – 14 February under the motto "Whose Data Is It,
Anyway?". During this week, numerous online events
will provide information on a wide range of research
data management topics. As part of this year's Love
Data Week, the Thuringian Competence Network for
Research Data Management (TKFDM) will be organising
three workshops as well as a coffee lecture.
- On 20 March, the Bioeconomy
Symposium “Advancing Sustainable Innovation”
will take place in Jena. It will bring together
researchers from across Germany and Europe to
develop innovative approaches for sustainable value
creation and bio-based technologies. The symposium
is held in English to encourage international
participation. It is organized by JenaVersum,
the Service
Center for Research and Transfer and the Nucleus
Jena project.
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Get
involved
- The Graduate Academy currently produces a video
for the Dance
your PhD competition. It will be a video
for the doctorate of an indian doctoral candidate.
Thus, the video will be with Indian dance music. Now
we are looking for people who would like to
participate in the video. If you are interested in
participating, please write an e-mail to norbert.krause@uni-jena.de.
- The Leibniz-HKI and the Microverse Cluster
organize a monthly series called “Science Meets
Society”. In this series, books are usually
discussed that deal with the role of scientists in
society. In February, for a change, a movie will be
shown and discussed: The film “Hidden Figures”
tells the story of three female African-American
scientists and the crucial role they played in the
development of Nasa in the 1960s. The language of
the events is English. Please register in advance
via this
form.
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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:
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This
may be of interest to you
- The new
national report “Researchers
in early career phases” has been
published. The report is compiled every four years
and summarizes existing data and studies on academic
careers. Some of the results: 92 percent of
academics are still employed on fixed-term contracts
- however, the proportion of fixed-term contracts
decreases as the career stage increases. The
tenure-track professorship has become established in
recent years: Since 2018, the number of such
positions has more than doubled from 665 to 1,336.
- More and more
universities are stopping their social media
activities on X. In a joint action, more than
60 German universities announced
their withdrawal from the platform. This was
triggered by the change in the platform's algorithm
last year, which led to an increase in right-wing
populist content and a reduction in organic reach.
On top of this came the increasing support of the
new owner of X, Elon Musk, for the far-right
political party "Alternative für Deutschland" (AfD).
The University of Jena has not withdrawn, but no
longer publishes posts on its X account.
(Illustration above: Norbert Krause)
- The German University Association of Advanced
Graduate Training (GUAT) has launched a new
German website to provide introductory
information on Open Science. It offers a
dictionary that explains the most important concepts
in the various areas of Open Science and a FAQ
section that answers critical questions (e.g. "What
do I gain from publishing my ideas and data with
Open Science?") The website also provides links to
relevant literature, resources, initiatives and
contacts.
- In Munich, a local court is currently
investigating a plagiarism case that
has attracted attention throughout Germany due to
its bizarre nature. In 2022, the head of the Munich
Institute of Forensic Medicine was accused of
plagiarising from an anthology in his dissertation
published in 1987. Doubts quickly arose about the
accusation: The English-language anthology had been
published by an East German publishing house in
Romania. An investigation revealed that it was the
other way round: The anthology had been compiled
retrospectively in order to accuse him of
plagiarism. The now accused had initially
commissioned ghostwriters to write the anthology and
then plagiarism hunters to check the dissertation.
It is suspected
that the motive was revenge for an allegedly faulty
autopsy following the death of his mother.
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Short
query: Retreat of academics from X
In this issue, we
want to know what you think about the fact that more and
more academic institutions are
retreating from X. The survey will take just about
one minute.
To
the survey
Results of our latest survey on fake papers
In the last issue, we wanted to know whether you have
had any experience with fake academic papers: Half of
the respondents stated that they had no experience with
such papers at all. 27 percent have heard of it or know
of examples from colleagues or supervisors. 9 percent
have already come across fake academic papers as a
reviewer or editor and 5 percent have heard of
colleagues who have manipulated or fabricated academic
papers themselves.
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News
from University of Jena
- Since the
beginning of the year, employees of
University of Jena can use extended versions
of ChatGPT
(GPT4-Turbo) and DeepL
(Pro) free of charge. The advantage of these
offers is improved data protection, as no login data
is passed on. Information in German on the use of AI
at Jena University can be found here.
In the case of ChatGPT,
there is a contingent of tokens that is calculated
and deducted for each search query. At DeepL,
up to 20,000 characters or 10 documents can be
translated per month. Unfortunately, access to these
programmes is currently only available to employees
and not to all doctoral candidates.
- Once again, the
University of Jena was voted
as one of the top three universities with
more than 15,000 students on the Studycheck
portal. In the website's ranking, Jena
achieved third place out of 41 universities. The
ranking is based on around 83,000 student
evaluations. A total of 95 percent of Jena students
recommended the university to others.
- Do dogs resemble
their owners? Doctoral candidate Yana Bender from
the University of Jena has investigated this
question in a meta
study. In fact, dog owners tend
to choose dogs that resemble them in appearance.
But there was also a similarity in personality:
Extroverted people are also more likely to have
extroverted dogs. The findings of the study can also
be helpful (beyond the mere anecdotal): Personality
tests can be developed for the adoption of animals
from animal shelters, leading to a stronger bond
between dogs and humans. (Pictures above: Gerrard
Gethings)
- Burial robes
belonging to former rectors are currently
being examined at the University of Jena. The robes
belong to a collection of bones that were found
beneath the site where the university was founded.
This collection of burial textiles is considered one
of the largest archaeological findings of civic
clothing from the late Middle Ages. The rector's
doublet, trousers and stockings can be visited in
the current
exhibition at the Jena City Museum until
February 9th.
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Latest
News from Jena and Thuringia
- A major donation to the political party
"Alternative für Deutschland" (Afd) has led to nationwide
attention and criticism of the Jena-based
office wholesaler Böttcher. A member of the
supervisory board had privately donated almost one
million euros to the far-right party. After this
became public and calls for a boycott were made, the
company distanced itself from the donation and
parted ways with the supervisory board member.
- There was a dispute
in the Jena City Council about the so-called “Burschenschaftsdenkmal”
(fraternity monument) at the main university
building. It commemorates the founding of the Urburschenschaft
in Jena. Since a paint attack in 2011, it has been
protected by a wooden casing. The funds for a
planned glass enclosure have now been cut from the
city budget. This caused displeasure among
conservative members of the city council, who want
to use the monument to show the historical
significance of the fraternities. However, the role
of the fraternities – especially in more recent
history – is viewed critically by many, and
therefore it is questioned whether the monument
should be shown again.
- The Bauhaus University of Weimar is hosting a photo
exhibition showing the situation at
East German universities in the last year
before the fall of the Berlin Wall. During
this time, students in the GDR were torn between two
worlds: On the one hand, the ideological dictates of
the socialist state prevailed; on the other, hopes
for freedom and change were growing. The exhibition
shows the everyday life of students as well as the
challenges posed by the profound social upheavals.
The traveling exhibition is a joint project of the
universities of Chemnitz, Halle, Jena, Leipzig,
Magdeburg and Weimar. (Image above: Student
demonstration with tent city, due to catastrophic
living conditions on Herderplatz, 1990)
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