Building a student network

In 2002, a dispute broke out between a group of students and Germany's Max Planck Society. It centred on disparities in the distribution of stipends and employment contracts for foreign and German students, and it had an unexpected spin-off. As a result of the argument, students at various Max Planck Institutes realized that they could use a more effective means of communicating with each other. This led to the formation of the Max Planck PhDnet, an online forum and networking site connecting more than 3,900 PhD students across the 78 institutes. Its goal is to foster communication on issues affecting students' professional lives.

PhDnet has evolved so that now PhD students from each institute elect a representative. These communicate with each other throughout the year on a web forum and also meet annually to discuss specific issues. The meetings are endorsed by the president of the Max Planck Society, who participates in some of them. This gives the students a chance to put questions directly to him. PhD representatives get an added incentive for volunteering, in that they learn about event management, networking and fund-raising.

PhDnet now promotes PhD advisory committees, provides a comprehensive questionnaire to evaluate the quality of students' research experiences, and encourages students to make their voices heard in political decisions at the institutes. It has also begun to offer three types of seminars at various sites across Germany, exploring interdisciplinary subjects, career advice and 'soft' skills such as communication.

Because the Max Planck Institutes span life-science, chemical, physical, technological and humanities research, there is both the opportunity for broad interdisciplinary work and the challenge to communicate across these diverse areas. In the career seminars, PhDnet invites established researchers in various fields from academia and industry to talk about career paths. The soft-skills seminars stress effective scientific communication — specialists, give tips on effective oral and poster presentation and scientific writing.

PhDnet has grown quickly, but there are still a lot more things it can do. In a microbiologist's terms, it is only in its early log phase.

→ http://www.phdnet.mpg.de