Good supervision – strong concepts – new ideas

Supervising doctoral researchers and postdocs means taking responsibility for emerging researchers and for our academic system. We invite you to join us in thinking about frameworks, benchmarks and methods of quality assurance – for the sake of a strong research culture and high quality in the training which doctoral researchers and postdocs undergo at our University. Taking current data as our basis, and with a view to international practice, let us work together in developing offers which pave the way for (post) doctoral researchers to embark on a successful career in the academic and business worlds.

The Münster Centre for Emerging Researchers (CERes) invites you to enter into a dialogue with us, and with one another, and to play an active role in developing new concepts and formats. Are you in the process of writing an application for external funding in which support for graduates plays a role? Are you planning a summer school with international guests and need some ideas for planning the programme? Do you have a feeling that something is not working quite right with the supervision you are engaged in and would like to talk to someone about it? We are here to help you as advisors, trainers and partners. Do feel free to contact us.

Position paper, April 2023

The German Science and Humanities Council on doctorates

The academic system is changing constantly. A significant increase in the number of doctorates, a diversification of training possibilities, and new developments relating to regulations on doctorates were a reason for the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat) to draw up a comprehensive position paper (April 2003). The positions set out benefit from a much improved situation today regarding data – as a result of the introduction of statistics covering doctoral candidates and of large-scale studies carried out over the past few years.

Large-scale longitudinal study

National Academics Panel Study

The data portal of the Nacaps study provides a wide range of results relating to the situation of doctoral candidates in Germany. Since 2019, the German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (Deutsches Zentrum für Hochschul- und Wissenschaftsforschung, DZHW) has been collecting comprehensive data covering 20,000 people in each round of surveys (2019, 2021, 2023); the work has been funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Take a look at the data relating to personal backgrounds and motivation, training conditions, academic work, and career paths. Did you know that 66% of doctoral researchers are satisfied or very satisfied with the supervision provided by their primary supervisor?

Quality Circle for Doctorates

Shaping supervision together – impulses for supervisors

Take a little time and use the brochure entitled “Shaping doctorates together – recommendations for supervisors” issued by the Quality Circle for Doctorates – to reflect on your own role as supervisor. How much weight do you give to motivation in selecting and recruiting doctoral candidates? Are the expectations on both sides as regards working together clear right from the start? How do you support doctoral researchers on their way to submitting their thesis and taking the oral examination? How do you support the establishment of networks and entry into a career? What does “good supervision” actually mean for you personally?

Handbooks, networks, annual conferences

Gaining and sharing impulses within UniWiND

Are you familiar with the publications of the German University Association of Advanced Graduate Training (Universitätsverband zur Qualifizierung des wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchses in Deutschland, UniWiND)? Higher education managers from all over Germany and German-speaking countries, as well as (emerging) researchers with an interest, are networked here with the aim of setting benchmarks, developing new concepts, and embedding quality assurance. A wide range of topics can be found here: sensitivity to diversity in supporting graduates, perspectives for postdocs, competency models for training doctoral researchers, or quality assurance for doctorates in medicine. The Münster CERes team is present at the annual conferences and is actively involved in a variety of networks and working groups.