actionuni der Schweizer Mittelbau / actionuni le corps intermédiaire académique suisse / actionuni il collegio intermediario academico svizzero represents young researchers as well as the associations of non-professorial academic staff of the Swiss cantonal universities, the Federal Institutes of Technology, the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences, and the Swiss Universities of Teacher Education on the Swiss national as well as the international level. actionuni’s objectives are to improve the academic career tracks and to coordinate the activities of the Swiss associations of non-professorial academic staff.
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Salome Adam, co-president of actionuni, recognizes the positive intentions of ETH-president Joël Mesot in a recent interview with züriost. Joël Mesot publicly apologized “to those affected by the unprofessional conduct of their supervisors” and presents a set of measures to improve prevention, leadership and the handling of conflict situations.
Read the full article here (German only).
Salome Adam, co-president of actionuni, was invited to comment in the Zürioberländer News on the recent cases of mobbing and plagiarism at EMPA, the independent materials, science and technology research institute of the ETH domain.
Salome states that the complex dependencies of young researchers from their professors aid to cases of exploitation. At EMPA, two professors are being accused of mobbing, inexplicable cases of dismissal of employees, and copying of material from Phd-theses for publication under their own name without citing of the original author(s).
Read the full article here (German only).
Maximilien Stauber, secretary general of ACIDUL, University of Lausanne, got interviewed on the recently released position paper of actionuni.
Maximilien claims that “It’s hard to get into a job if you know that potentially, in a year, or even three years, it will be over. These are unstable and often shifting positions. It is necessary all the time to move, one pushes you to do it for criteria of excellence. It’s complicated to manage.”
Read the full article at RTS (French only).
actionuni has given feedback on the new ETH legislation. Our main points are:
Read the full Vernehmlassungsantwort (German).
Salome Adam, co-president of actionuni, participated in a discussion with Prof. Aguzzi from University of Zurich on the misuse of power and mobbing at universities. Some real cases are reported but also ways are discussed of how pressure in research can be mitigated without compromising scientific quality.
Today, actionuni der Schweizer Mittelbau publishes its position paper (pdf German / pdf French / pdf English) on the promotion of young researchers at Swiss higher education institutions. The position paper was drawn up jointly with all members and unanimously adopted at the last delegates’ meeting.
Florian Lippke, former Co-President of actionuni and member of the Swiss Accreditation Council, commented: “We are aware that every university faces different challenges and that some are already considering approaches to improve the conditions for young scientists in their institutions. However, we know that there are fundamental problems in the Swiss higher education area for non-professorial academic staff, which we must tackle together.”
Our positions in a nutshell:
Media contacts:
– Florian Lippke, Tel: +41 76 720 17 70, Mail: florian.lippke@actionuni.ch (D, FR, E)
– Salome Adam, Tel: +41 79 249 54 33, Mail: salome.adam@actiouni.ch (D, E)
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.
Three big European organisations for early-career and senior researchers have jointly issued a response to ‘Plan S’ on Open Access. Reassuring their support, they offer concrete recommendations on the proposed guidance for achieving Open Access via Plan S to ensure its realistic implementation from the perspective of European researchers.
Read more: http://eurodoc.net/news/2019/press-release-researchers-respond-to-implementation-of-plan-s
Never heard of Plan S?
Continue reading European researchers respond to implementation of ‘Plan S’ on Open Access
We are looking for two young researcher interested in traveling to Brussels from 1 to 4 April and represent actionuni at the Eurodoc Annual Conference and Annual General Meeting. Costs are covered.
Please send an expression of interest to salome.adam@actionuni.ch by 22 February 2019.
Continue reading Call for Participation – EURODOC conference 1-4 April in Brussels
The Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW) has published a report on the precarious situation of the non-professorial academic staff. Focus is being laid on post-docs in social sciences.
Unfortunately, the report is in German – however, the management summary is available in German and French.
Hildbrand, Thomas (2018): Next Generation: Für eine wirksame Nachwuchsförderung (Swiss Academies Reports 13, 1). Full text at Zenodo