This is a guest post by Jacqueline Malchow (DSM).
2024 was a productive year in terms of learning together and further developing the „Work & Health“ Working Group. The biggest update was the second version of the Welcome Package for PostDocs that is available on our Leibniz PostDoc Network website. As we describe in detail in our blog post in April 2024, the Welcome Package 2.0 contains updated links, a new license, and a disclaimer alongside additional information we could gather for PostDocs from Germany, as well as from abroad, to help you navigate German bureaucracy, work environments, and the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz (WissZeitVG). We are happy about the wide interest and positive feedback that we received. It is wonderful to hear that the Welcome Package is regularly distributed in several Leibniz Institutes and also re-used and adapted for local versions in different institutes.
We are also very happy that we were able to offer you three free webinars on the topics of mental health and working conditions. The first webinar titled „Making good decisions“ by Dr. Vicent Botella-Soler provided helpful tools to make decisions in academia based on the vast amount of information available to researchers and stand by them. The second webinar on „Perfectionism & Imposter Syndrome“ by Dr. Desiree Dickerson made it perfectly clear that we PostDocs are all in the same boat together. The webinar offered helpful practices to relax during the daily working dynamics and “keep going” in our academic careers. The third webinar „Managing conflict“, again by Dr. Desiree Dickerson, tackled various cases of conflict in a work environment and showed possible solutions. Each webinar had between 70 and 100 participants and both coaches made sure our voices and concerns were heard and addressed. We asked you for feedback on the last webinar and the vast majority loved the webinar and would sign up for another. We are looking forward to another round of informative and helpful webinars we will offer to you in 2025.
With the help of the third PostDoc survey, we also hope to further evaluate the working conditions that Leibniz PostDocs are facing and find out which mental health webinars would best serve your needs and ambitions. Our overall goal is to see the well-being of Leibniz PostDocs improved. The working group always welcomes new members and currently has an open position as co-coordinator. If you’re interested, please email us!
