Well-being: An active approach
2025-09-22 10:30 - 12:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Online meeting
In this webinar, Dr. Vicent Botella-Soler will share with us active approaches to maintain well-being in our everyday life. He will explain the concept of an “empty bucket”, how our buckets are drained daily, and how we can actively refill them.
Registration link: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/40c6482c76bbff4a5d1c262e85bead2c-1195331

Leading a team
2025-10-06 10:30 - 12:00 | Online meeting
In this webinar, Dr. Desiree Dickerson will discuss with us the challenges and changes of becoming a supervisor. The success of your team depends partly on how you choose to lead, on the tone you set, on how you model collaboration and collegiality with others, on how you narrate failure and how you lift others up when they stumble, as well as on how you navigate conflict and seek to understand the position and path of those you are working with.
Registration link: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/c9ee991d6f87c5fc69faa2edb0c339a9-1195332

9th Leibniz PostDoc Network General Assembly
2025-11-17 13:00 - 2025-11-18 14:00 | Leibniz HQ, Berlin
Join Us for the Leibniz Postdoc Network General Assembly!
Are you a postdoc at a Leibniz Institute? Mark your calendars for an enriching and engaging event designed just for you! We’re excited to invite you to the upcoming Leibniz PostDoc Network General Assembly under the motto “Inclusion, Innovation and Impact”. The event is free of charge and a perfect opportunity to learn, connect and collaborate. We even offer a joint poster session with the Helmholtz Association Postdoc Network (HAPN) and the Max Planck PostdocNet (MPN)! Here’s what you can look forward to:

Day 1 – November 17th, 2025 (Monday): One online-workshop, otherwise on-site at the Leibniz Headquarters, Chausseestr. 111, 10115 Berlin
13:00-17:00 – Parallel Workshops
Kick-off the event with a series of interactive workshops that deliver hands-on learning and in-depth exploration across a range of topics. Whether you’re aiming to enhance your expertise or dive into fresh areas of research, these sessions are crafted to offer meaningful insights and real-world skills.
Please note that workshops have limited spots. These will be allocated on a ‘first-come, first-served’ basis. If you secure a spot, you will receive a confirmation at a later date. If it turns out, you can’t come after all, please inform us via mail: spokespersons@leibniz-postdoc.de so we can give your spot to another postdoc. You can choose one of the workshops to register:

Workshop 1 (on-site only): Advancing Your Career with Diversity Skills by Dr. Sabine Müller
Ever wondered how diversity is pertinent to your work? What kind of skills are they and how are they important for a self-determined career path?
Having a career in academia requires a strong research portfolio whilst, at the same time, you have to show managerial and leadership competence in a highly competitive environment. Navigating your career means not only to check a list of achievements but to actively shape an environment in which you as well as others can strive.
Diversity skills comprise a set of key personal competences that help you built such an environment being able to identify and use your own strengths and the strengths of others. Having a strong set of diversity skills, thus, supports you in successfully planning your projects, managing teams as well as becoming a strong communicator.
This half-day workshop invites postdocs to explore and start developing their diversity skills with an outlook on their own career. The workshop will provide an overview of key diversity skills and facilitate participants to connect them with their own career goals as well as their values.
This workshop will cover the following topics:

Overview: key diversity skills?
Importance of diversity skills
Career planning with goals and values
Some “rules of the game”
Tools and methods to create a trustful work environment

Workshop 2 (on-site only): Transfer Workshop – Focus Life Sciences: Is there transfer potential in my research? By Dr. Rebekka Müller
Have you always wondered whether there could be more to your research? Whether your scientific findings have the potential to be turned into a product that benefits society?
In this interactive workshop with Dr. Rebekka Müller, you will learn the essentials of technology transfer, with focus on the life sciences, and why it matters. Together, we will explore the key steps from research to application, illustrated by successful transfer examples. In practical sessions, you will actively work with real life science cases to identify the transfer and commercialization potential.

Workshop 3 (online only): Advanced Programming with Generative AI for Researchers by Christian Steiner
This four-hour online workshop builds on foundational knowledge of AI-assisted programming. Participants will work with current AI coding tools and examine their integration into research workflows.
The workshop covers recent developments in generative AI for code generation, with particular attention to model capabilities released in 2025. Participants will compare prompt engineering strategies across different model architectures and evaluate when automated code generation is appropriate for research applications.
The primary focus is Claude Code, currently the most capable AI coding agent available. Participants will explore its features for project-level code generation, refactoring, and debugging. The workshop also covers Cursor and GitHub Copilot, comparing their approaches to code completion, workspace awareness, and integration with development environments.
Participants will work with both standard AI interfaces (Claude, ChatGPT, and other platforms they have access to) and API playgrounds from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. This combination allows testing of different models’ code generation capabilities and comparison of their performance on identical programming tasks. The workshop also introduces LLM APIs and their potential applications in research.
The workshop concludes with a mini-hackathon where participants apply these techniques to their own research problems. This provides immediate practice with the tools covered and allows for troubleshooting specific use cases.
Prerequisites: Basic programming experience and access to Claude is recommended. Tasks, research questions etc. for the mini-hackathon are highly recommended.

17:00-18:30 – Poster Session with Helmholtz Association Postdoc Network (HAPN) and Max Planck PostdocNet (MPN)
This interdisciplinary poster session will create an opportunity to present your research and explore the innovative work being done by fellow postdocs across different Helmholtz, Leibniz and Max Planck Institutes. Rather than focusing on the results, this poster session aims to offer a dedicated time and space to discuss ideas and explore interdisciplinary collaborations between postdocs. We strongly encourage you to use this session as a platform to start new collaborations. If you need a collaborator for a project, consider reaching out to potential collaborators and inviting them to join.

19:00 – Networking Dinner
We will end the first day with a relaxing networking dinner.

Day 2 – November 18th, 2025 (Tuesday): On-site & Online
09:00-09:15 – Welcome (Bettina Böhm, Secretary General of the Leibniz Association)

09:15-10:15 – Introduction to the Leibniz Postdoc Network and Working Groups
Get to know the Leibniz PostDoc Network. Learn about the various working groups, their missions and activities, and how you can get involved with the network. This session is essential for new members and a great refresher for current ones.

10:30-12:00 – Panel on “Diverse career paths for PostDocs” (Moderator: Dr. Christian Nehls, Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center)
We’ve invited four inspiring panelists to share valuable insights into the diverse career paths available for postdocs:

Dr. Ulrike Hagemann: Head of the Landeskompetenzzentrum Forst Eberswalde (former: Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research – ZALF)
Dr. Niklas Reinken: Junior Professor “Grammar for School“ at University of Leipzig (former: Leibniz Institute for the German Language – IDS)
Dr. Lydia Repke: Acting head of the “Scale Development and Documentation” team and PI of the project “LoneCovid” (Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences – GESIS)
Dr. Gabriel Sollberger: Science manager at Leibniz Association (former: Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology)

12:45-13:15 – Network Elections
After lunch, we will begin with the election of new representatives. Your participation is crucial in shaping the future of the Leibniz PostDoc Network. Not only can you help select the new Spokespersons and Financial Officer who will lead us into 2026, but you can also run for these positions. This is your opportunity to have a direct impact on the network and its direction for the coming year.

13:15-14:00 – Leibniz PostDoc Network – Present & Future
Driven by and for postdocs, the Leibniz PostDoc Network not only serves as your representative body within the Leibniz Association and politics but also aims to support postdocs. The steering committee will guide discussions to define our upcoming plans. As a valued member of this network, we hope you will engage in these discussions and help shape the network’s future.

Don’t miss this chance to be part of a vibrant community of researchers. Stay tuned for more details, and make sure to register early to secure your spot. Further details about workshops, the networking dinner and the poster session will be sent to registered participants. We look forward to seeing you there!

The event is free for all Leibniz PostDocs but registration is mandatory. Please do not forget to register by clicking the registration link: https://forms.gle/tfdwWbfbeGAPXkDD9
For on-site participation, please register until October 28.
If you require any further information, please contact our spokespersons: spokespersons@leibniz-postdoc.de.
Please help us spread the word and share the post with your colleagues!

Organisation committee:
Christian Nehls, Shyam Krishnan, Julia Jungbluth, Judith Boldt, Ngoc Duyen Tanja Tu, Bastian Seelbinder, Sravanthi Nadiminti

Dealing with Failure and Rejection in Academia – How to Stay Resilient
2026-05-29 09:00 - 12:30
Failure and rejection are common experiences in academic life and can significantly impact motivation and well‑being. In this interactive workshop, Dr. Nicola Bauer explores the psychological interplay of intrinsic motivation, failure, and high‑pressure academic environments.
Participants will learn how to reframe setbacks and become aware of practical cognitive, emotional, and physical coping strategies. Through reflection, peer discussions, and interactive exercises, the workshop supports researchers in strengthening their resilience and maintaining motivation in their academic careers.
Event Details:

Date: Friday, 29 May 2026
Time: 9:00 – 12:30
Format: Online (Zoom)
Trainer: Dr. Nicola Bauer (JoyWorks Trainings)
Registration link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/74CSx7ofRAifJjXuYmPS4Q
