Networking activities

One of the main tasks of actionuni is the exchange with key stakeholders to influence the Education, Research and Innovation Policy of the coming years. Here we inform you in short about these networking activities.

Symposium Doctoral Supervision at ETH

Events

Last week, an interesting symposium on the topic of supervising doctoral students was held by ETH in Zurich.

It was discussed, how better training for supervisors can improve quality of supervision, how a contract between the PhD-student and the supervisor can help clarify expectations, how PhD-committees help balance power, which platforms can help strengthen peer-feedback among supervisors and establish a commonly agreed on “code of conduct” for supervisors.

All inputs of the symposium can be found here: https://www.video.ethz.ch/events/2019/supervision.html

We are looking forward to see the ETH and other universities develop this topic further.

Annual meeting actionuni – SNF

Events

Last November, actionuni representatives had their annual exchange meeting with SNF representatives. At the meeting, questions from actionuni members to the SNF are discussed and actionuni gives input to current development of the SNF.

This years main topics were:

  1. Mobility as a selection criterion is obsolete: The SNF agrees that geographical mobility of young researchers as a criterion to judge a researchers’ professional network has become outdated, considering the way researchers are connecting nowadays through digital ways and means. The SNF this year aims to revise the requirements of its funding instruments accordingly.
  2. Stronger promotion of Post-Docs: Influencing employment conditions of post-doctoral researchers towards more unlimited contracts or Tenure Track is not possible through SNF as these are within the universities’ own competencies.
  3. Centralized evaluation strategy of SNF funding applications, starting 2021: By using centralized remote or panel-evaluation, the SNF aims to standardize the assessment and selection of candidates. Consequently, local selection committees (Forschungskommissionen) will be abrogated.

actionuni participates prominently in AAQ Institutional Accreditation Day

Events

On 29 November 2018, the second AAQ Institutional Accreditation Day took place in Berne. The topic was “Quality concerns everyone! How participation is lived at Swiss higher education institutions”.

Salome Adam, co-president of actionuni (far right), at the podium

The program and presentations can be found online (DE / FR).

Continue reading actionuni participates prominently in AAQ Institutional Accreditation Day →

EURODOC Postdoc Survey – your voice matters

Events

How do you feel about your current job? What are your working conditions, your rights, your perspectives? Do you feel satisfied by your work-life balance?

With the goal to understand these and other issues, Eurodoc launches today a survey on postdocs working in Europe. The survey will investigate the challenges postdocs are confronted with in the current job market in Europe, working and living conditions, their expectations and perspectives on their careers.
Results will shed light on similarities and differences in how postdocs in different countries currently live and work from their perspective, with a specific focus on mobility, awareness of duties and rights, quality of life and well-being.

Whether you are a postdoc working in academia, in public administration, in an NGO or in the private sector, take part in the survey! It will take less than 10 minutes of your time, but your participation is really valuable and your answers will help improve Eurodoc policies on junior researchers.
Your voice matters!

Link: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/Postdoc_survey

Save-the-date: General Assembly 2018

Events, Internal

Actionuni’s next General Assembly will take place in Bern on June 7, 2018, 4:00-7:00 p.m.

Location: University of Bern
Building: UniS (Schanzeneckstrasse 1, Bern)
Room: A201

We are looking for candidates from all types of universities, in particular from Universities of Applied Sciences and urgently from Universities of Teacher Education for the following positions:

  • co-presidents
  • board member
  • Eurodoc-representative
  • SNF-representative
  • member of swissuniversities delegation “Teaching”

Please send your letters of interest to: president@actionuni.ch by 31 May 2018

Research career – A living dream?

Eurodoc, Events

The Eurodoc conference 2018, which was organized in collaboration with FUURT, took place in Tampere on 18 and 19 April 2018. The conference’s main topics were mental health, equality with focus on mobility, open access, and new criteria for measuring excellence. Amongst the highly qualified PhD speakers were also representatives from industry and European education institutions. The audience gave new insights and many opportunities to discuss these topics covered from different perspectives and led to promising approaches for innovative solutions. Opportunities for networking ensure ongoing discussion and activities related to the topics discussed. It also made Eurodoc, its National Associations and all their efforts more visible. actionuni was represented by Salome Adam and Mirco Grüter.

Continue reading Research career – A living dream? →

Report of the Annual General Meeting of the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc)

Eurodoc, Events

Salome Adam (VAUZ) and Mirco Grüter (VAUZ & Actionuni) were this year’s Actionuni’s delegates at the “Annual General Meeting” (AGM) of “the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc) that took place in Tampere, Finland from the 20.-21. April 2018. The AGM is Eurodoc’s highest decision-making body.

Continue reading Report of the Annual General Meeting of the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc) →

New representative to the SHK, Lena Hehemann

Events, Internal

We are happy to announce that actionuni has found an ad interim representative to the Schweizerische Hochschulkonferenz SHK / Conférence suisse des hautes écoles CSHE / Conferenza svizzera delle scuole universitarie CSSU.

Lena Hehemann (cand. Ph.D., Law Faculty, Insitute for European Law, University of Fribourg) will replace our current representative, Ruth Lyck (PD PhD, Medical Faculty, Theodor Kocher Institute, University of Bern).

We want to use this opportunity to sincerely thank Ruth Lyck for her dedication and continued endeavor on behalf of actionuni.

Eurodoc Conference 2017 “Open Science” and Annual General Meeting

Eurodoc, Events

At this year’s Eurodoc conference from 26-29 April 2017 in Oslo, Norway, Burim Ramaj and Cécile Blaser, both University of Fribourg, represented actionuni. Eurodoc is the European Association of doctoral candidates and young researchers. actionuni (Switzerland) is member in Eurodoc since 2006. In total, 32 organisations are member of Eurodoc, representing their respective European countries and the Council of Europe.

This year’s topic was of the Annual Conference of Eurodoc was “Open Science”, a heavily discussed topic also in Switzerland.

Continue reading Eurodoc Conference 2017 “Open Science” and Annual General Meeting →