Department for PhD Candidates

Representatives: Melanie Mitchell, Hannes Mühlenbrock and Karthik Subramaniam Kalyankumar

PhD candidates at Münster University are a heterogeneous group. The daily life of every doctoral candidate differs, depending on whether it is e.g. an individual doctorate with scholarship, a part-time PhD or a traditional PhD position at a department chair.

We are used to act in different contexts. We are students and/or work at a research project or at a department chair; we create our first publications and take on first responsibilities within teaching or administration; furthermore, there usually is a more or less strong working relationship with our supervisor. PhD candidates are therefore confronted with a variety of specific problems and challenges that need to be tackled individually and by themselves. But this changes now!

We want to be your contact at Münster University for all questions regarding your PhD experience and want to support your interests as a status group at university. As an autonomous department, we are tied to AStA. We answer questions, provide you with information and help you with problems, e.g. concerning the supervision of your PhD, time management issues or financial funding. We also want to foster the networking between PhD candidates from different faculties.

The most important task for us as representatives is to represent the interests of specific groups towards the rectorate, the departments, institutes and other institutions. So far, there has not been a university political institution at University Münster that is only responsible for PhD candidates. Such a situation can be quite problematic, especially for the high number of doctoral candidates that are not university employees but contribute significantly to the promotion of PhD careers at the university to younger generations, e.g. within the framework of postgraduate schools or individual doctorates. The department is composed of members that belong to the status group of PhD candidates themselves and therefore differs quite heavily from other institutions, such as the graduate centre.