Besides my philosophical endeavors, I have at times tried to help improve the precarious working conditions for people like me at German universities. Around 2011, I joined various political grassroot groups of PhD students and postdocs in Halle (and helped found one). We wrote policy papers and stirred up some dust, but I can't say we achieved a single thing.
In June 2021, the twitter movement #IchbinHanna has rekindled my hope that certain very unhealthy developments of the past 30 years in German academia might now catch the attention of a wider public. Since then, I've been twittering a lot, this time with a special focus on a German labor law (WissZeitVG) designed to retain a very large number of scholars and scientists in academia until the age of 40-45, at which point almost all of them get laid off.
I dream of the day science politicians of all democratic parties in our parliament understand that this practice exploits people, harms science and wastes taxpayer money at the same time. But I don't see it coming yet. Whatever your political leanings, if you read this, please join the effort. Among the links below are some good places to begin.
Webpages
- The official #IchbinHanna Blog. Operated by my cherished colleagues Amrei Bahr, Kristin Eichhorn and Sebastian Kubon. Describes what this movement is all about.
- Policy paper on Universities and Research. Parliamentary Faction of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), June 22, 2021. In my eyes the best proposals yet. Other parties: Do your homework, you need to catch up.
- PhD Student Initiative Halle. Co-founded this. Still seems to exist.
Downloads
- Policy Paper concerning PhD Students and Postdocs in Saxony-Anhalt (.pdf). My colleagues and I authored this historical document back in 2011. Still a good paper. Germany's national science council ("Wissenschaftsrat") saw merit in its proposals (see here in fn. 234). Needless to say that the state government ignored them.
- Questionnaire for a planned evaluation of WissZeitVG (.pdf)