The workshop combines Good Scientific Practice (Part 1) with Negotiation & Conflict Management (Part 2). During your doctoral studies you will come into contact with other scientists and collaborate with them. Here negotiation skills can be helpful. This may even prevent potential conflicts with your supervisor.

Good scientific practice covers a substantial spectrum of scientific conduct: Dealing with data (including checking, recording, ownership and storage), the publishing process and authorship, responsible supervision, academic cooperation, conflicts of interest and dealing with conflicts. Inappropriate academic behaviour includes inventing or faking data, violating intellectual property (theft of ideas or plagiarism), and obstructing the research of others. More subtle topics, such as skepticism, critical thinking, reproducibility, handling creativity, the danger of axiomatic assumptions and confirmation bias occur much more often and therefore represent the “heart of good scientific practice”.

Every scientist should have a professional understanding of all mentioned topics.

The workshop aims at improving non-native English speakers’ academic writing skills by highlighting typical features and composing elements commonly applied and expected by native speakers of English. Participants will be equipped with a textbook written by the trainer that covers all the features introduced during the sessions, they will have ample opportunity to ask individual questions, and they will receive immediate feedback on their own writing. During the workshop we will

• reflect on how the character of the English language influences the Anglo-Saxon academic writing style and identify subsequent features in academic texts
• highlight pitfalls non-native speakers of English are vulnerable to when writing in English and introduce straightforward strategies to avoid them
• present techniques for developing a fluent and lively academic writing style
• introduce resources, aids, and methods to enlarge and retain vocabulary
• edit text passages written by the participants

In the German academic system, Tenure-Track is a relatively new concept. With a tenure-track position, one gets the opportunity to an immediately transition to a permanent position when successfully completing the probationary period (known as the tenure-track phase). The majority of tenure-track positions comes along with a professorship; less common and known are lecturer or researcher positions with tenure-track. 

The half-day workshop will focus on tenure-track professorships in Germany and address the following questions:

• What are the specifics and legal conditions of tenure-track positions?
• How do selection committees work and how is the mid-term and tenure evaluation organized?
• What are duties and tasks of a tenure-track professor?
• Where do I get help and orientation beyond my home institution?
• Q&A

This workshop addresses junior scholars from the social sciences, economics, and the humanities who have good command of the English language, seek to improve their English writing skills, and strive to make their academic papers more idiomatic. The workshop seeks to create an awareness of the typical patterns of non-idiomatic writing to which non-native authors writing in English – and especially German-speaking academics – are prone and equip the participants with strategies to avoid these pitfalls.

The workshop will be held on three days (two days in person; a half day online, during which you will receive individual feedback). It will be conducted in English by two trainers who have a professional background in the social sciences and many years of experience in teaching English academic writing and in translating and editing academic texts by German-speaking scholars.