Our Academic Values

The fundamental goal of the Zukunftskolleg is the empowerment of early career researchers in the early to mid-postdoctoral phase. This is achieved by contractual (2+1-year fellowships) and financial means (research account, co-funding), in addition to the prioritisation of research activities (no obligation to teach), giving fellows a significant role in the institution’s self-governance (the executive committee) and the passing down of institutional knowledge about funding schemes and grant writing practices within the community.

This produces an empathetic and collaborative atmosphere among the fellow community, seasoned with a somewhat competitive edge (occasional jour fixe discussions, SAB meetings, the annual report) due to the difficulties associated with navigating this career phase.

As someone in the early Postdoc phase, I have been granted the chance to interact and learn from role-models who prove that it is possible to obtain prestigious grants and carve out a career in academia. This is extremely motivating, and pushes me to think about my research in ways that go beyond the disciplinary limitations of my field.

James Wilson

I think two of the main values of the Zukunftskolleg (next to general academic values such as honesty, integrity) are respect and open-mindedness. The Zukunftskolleg hosts so many researchers from so many research fields, each having their own perspective. I have found that this plentitude of perspectives offers an incredibly enriching environment (open-mindedness). And despite possibly clashing perspectives and opinions, interactions at the Zukunftskolleg that I have witnessed have been nothing else than civil and respectful.

Respect for diversity in opinions, perspectives, uniqueness and talents  as well as integrity in research. In my teaching, I see my students as individual beings with multiple perspectives and welcome different opinions other than mine. By so doing I tend to learn more also as a teacher. I apply same with my research collaborators by welcoming different perspectives and ideas.

Academic freedom, diversity and inclusion, integrity, collaboration are what I believe to be among the values promoted by the Zukunftskolleg. These allow me to do research and to teach without constraint, as well provide an open, collaborative and supportive environment in which to explore, question, discover and share, and in which diverse perspectives, populations, and approaches are valued.

For me the ZuKo‘s values emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration, intellectual freedom, and the supporting of early-career researchers. These values influence my work by encouraging open-mindedness and innovation, helping me to approach problems from diverse perspectives and engage with colleagues across disciplines.

I think a very important value in the Zukunftskolleg is related to the acceptation of mental freedom and diversity, i.e., each one can believe and do almost whatever we want in our research. This is a strongly relevant value in itself because allow the Zukunftskolleg to explore different trends of analysis, research strategies, and promote diversity, especially when different perceptions interact with each other. However, it also has a negative part, that is the lack of a specific trend to follow and unify researchers. For instance, I feel good about the independence I have, but also affected by the lack of a clear guide that allows me to know if my way of perceiving scientific work fits or not with others. It would be great something in between, maybe a kind of introduction to our personal values and how they impact our research, so everybody can see them and check if they would fit with some colleagues in a personal or only academic way. I find this crucial when we seek collaborative groups on long-term projects that attempt to generate social change.

I would like to point out three values:

One of the core values of the institute is that fellows can pursue their research goals with an unconventional degree of autonomy. At the level of individual projects, this provides a rare opportunity to spur experimental or serendipitous research ideas at a career stage when it is particularly difficult to secure a position with a solid infrastructure predicated on these terms. At the institutional level, it reflects in an organisational structure that allows managing internal resources with a significant degree of flexibility and participation.

Considering that professional opportunities in research are limited and that academia from the outset promotes (endogenous and exogenous) competition as a core value, I believe the institute fosters a remarkably collegial and cooperative environment. The experience of this communal support against a backdrop of pivotal career pressures suggests that collegiality is also a core value at the institute.

The third value I associate with the Zukunftskolleg relates to its active nurturing of more-than-national knowledge structures. While internationalization is part of the institute’s strategy, I refer to something slightly different here: I mean the opportunity to aggregate situated perspectives while constantly supporting the more-than-local aspects of science-making as a fundamental principle. Of course, the institution operates within the German academic system, while the incoming fellows bring experiences from local or other regional contexts. In my view there is, however, a structural effort to foster knowledge and knowledge networks that extend beyond internationalisation–aligning with the subcultural supranationalism that constitutes deep scientific and collective intellectual endeavours.

Eduardo Luersen

I confess I had difficulty formulating something to say about Zuko's values. I don't see them as very different from academic values in general (truth, rigor, intellectual freedom, and so on). The one thing that I can see that is a bit different is a collaborative spirit in helping early career scholars navigate the existential hell of the academic job market. Although this is not exactly unique, I think many places still see this phase as a rite of passage where cut-throat competition is expected to filter the most resilient, with the resulting pain being naturalized and even embraced. I guess we can try to extend this same kind of collaborative spirit to interactions outside the Zuko.

Henrique Almeida de Castro

What I value about the Zukunftskolleg that it values and promotes individuality and originality, shutting off the primary focus on performance metrics and competition between fellows.
Most importantly, being a member of the Zukunftskolleg hat encouraged me to stay authentic, to realize my ideas off the beaten tracks in sometimes non-conventional ways. Results followed in terms of publications and funding, and so did requests for collaboration, mentoring, prizes and teaching invitations. This has motivated me to pursue my academic career despite all insecurities around it, and passing on these values by becoming a mentor for other early career researchers.

Ariane Bertogg

In my opinion, the ZuKo’s main values are diversity and respect. I think the ZuKo is actively striving for a very diverse community, both in terms of scientific content (fields of research, approaches) and personal characteristics of the fellows (country of origin, etc). As a result I found it a very open-minded and tolerant space, where it is possible to discuss all topics freely.

Morgane Nouvian

As fellows, the only way to share our academic values is through scientific and public engagement with people and institutions outside the Zukunftskolleg.

At a basic level, the institution helps to do this by empowering early career researchers, providing research allowances and additional funding to facilitae early career independence. This provides fellows with a two-three year opportunity to expand their research networks and conduct in-depth research.

After the leave, every fellow at the Zukunftskolleg takes these experiences and knowledge into their next positions, be that in academia or in other sectors. The emphasis placed on encouraging successful grant applications will also help to foster these values among future leaders in research working in a diverse range of subject areas.  

James Wilson

I believe one of the best ways to share these academic values is to actively live them and to pass them on to the people that we mentor/supervise (PhD students, students, HiWis, interns, …). They can act as multipliers, spreading these values to their home institutions or passing them on to their own mentees/supervisees.

I guess by incorporating these values in our research, we model them.

I think the members of the Zukunftskolleg are already engaging in promoting these values (intellectual freedom, inclusivity, and integrity) beyond academic walls. This is done through use of open-access platforms, involvement in global research collaborations from diverse geographic and cultural backgrounds, participation in outreach events aimed at diverse audiences that bring our work into the local communities.

By promoting a culture of mutual respect and support, these values shape my interactions with colleagues within my discipline and beyond.

If these values are part of our scientific outcomes, our interactions with colleagues, and practical applications derived from our research, we could share values beyond Konstanz with different stakeholders, even non-researchers that that potentially may produce, impact and spread scientific ideas, democratizing scientific practices and discoveries.

We need mechanisms for sharing our values, ideas, and finding groups thinking like us. In this sense, instead of models I would focus my efforts on some kind of “value transfer” framework to identify and classify groups whose values fits, reshape from others’ values, and identify trends from incompatible values that should share a space without negatively affect each other (e.g., people thinking that science must have a social impact vs people thinking that science must be as objective as possible, isolated from social changes).

We are discussing institutional values, which, in my view, serve as a compass for actions at the micro and macro levels of organisations. Considering this, it is important that they are not only communicated clearly through institutional channels but are also represented in the institute's calls and formats. To share these values beyond Konstanz and to model them in practical terms, it could be interesting to probe goal-oriented or topic-specific coalitions with institutions in Germany and abroad sharing related values–across the IAS network surely, but perhaps also identifying other potential para-institutional networks. This could in some respects be redundant with existing formats, but other experimental models to amplify a specific set of values could be pursued.

Eduardo Luersen

Personally, I think it is best to communicate these values by living them. For instance, one might start an international, intergenerational and interdisciplinary collaborations, and manage and organize it in a participative and horizontal way, which grants early career researchers ample independence and freedom. Finally, we can disseminate its findings (and non-findings) to a broader audience beyond one's own discipline in more general and accessible ways.

Ariane Bertogg

Well, first we can write a statement! But I think it’s also important for the ZuKo to keep actively supporting these values, we don’t not want this to be an equivalent of “green-washing”. In doing so, we might benefit from some self-amplification processes (e.g. increasing diversity will extend our network and make it even easier to reach the diverse people we are looking for).

Morgane Nouvian