What are the benefits of good relationships with colleagues in academia? And what are the organisational structures that make good relationships more likely? This was explored at the fourth PostDoc Office Annual Event at Unicorn Startup & Innovation Hub on April 16, 2025.
Ten speakers (some of whom made the trip from the USA and Sweden and even Vienna) and 80+ participants joined in an in-depth conversation about collegiality, good leadership and academic kindness.
Is academia special? Do normal rules not apply here? Mireille van Poppel, Vice-Rector for Internationalization and Equal Opportunities, and Markus Fallenböck, Vice-Rector for Human Resources and Digitalisation, set the stage for the discussions through their answers in the welcome interview:
- Mireille van Poppel emphasised that you learn from good role models, and that the PhD period was a memorable stage for her own leadership development. Currently, her “secret” is that she puts her trust in a good team. Academia is special in a way, because subject matter experts (i.e. brilliant researchers) tend to become accidental leaders, when they move up because of their research successes.
- When Markus Fallenböck was asked for his leadership “hack”, he emphasised that purpose is needed to lead teams who are motivated; and that communication is indeed key.
After this, the discussion zoomed out to take a bird’s eye-view on academia, with the help of Anita Thaler, senior researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Technology, Work, and Culture (IFZ) in Graz.
- Thaler touched on what makes researchers satisfied with their work: being valued as a person, with one's specific knowledge, having one's well-being considered, efforts appreciated, ideas supported and enough time to do one's work well.
- Drawing from the volume she edited alongside Dani Jauk-Ajamie in 2022, she made the case that “academic care work” is a necessary component of knowledge production, and that cultures solely based on excellence do not sufficiently aknowledge this. She stressed the importance of movements like the DORA declaration in evaluating research more wisely and moving away from harmful metrics to meaningfull assessment.
- The work that makes academia liveable needs to be counted as well - and the burden of kindness is often on researchers with no permanent positions ("not only PhD students should be kind but leadership needs to model it"), women* with migrant backgrounds and other marginalised knowledge workers in and around the university. With Kris de Welde, she stated that academic kindness must be guided by academic justice.
- A supportive organisational climate, with clear communication channels, EDI policies and practices that are effective, can go a long way towards generating a sense of belonging among the academic work force.
- Thaler ended with a call for everyone to unleash the radical transformative power of academic kindness, starting today.
Subsequently, the audience was provided with a detailed description into what goes on when a bunch of thesis supervisors get together to support each other by Jelena Tadic and Johann Hlina from the Supervisor Network, who highlighted the significance of collegiality as a tool for better supervision.
- The interdisciplinary network (career stages from senior postdoctoral researchers to tenured professors) and its methods for collaboration were inspired by trainers Gitte Wichmann-Hansen and Yasmin Dolak-Struss.
- Talking about their group, Tadic stated „it’s never too early to shape your skills; and it’s never too late“.
- Among the tools provided in their initial supervisor training, which Tadic said should be made mandatory, was the “supervision letter”: it outlines how collaboration should look like with students; sets out mutual expectations.
- Tadic also described the importance of adapting one's style to each student to foster development and autonomy in a way that is useful for the individual.
- Johann Hlina further described the collegial consultation model used by the members of the network; and stated that this style of peer support can be used in many different settings, and it used at the University of Graz already for a long time.
- Hlina and Tadic explained the impact the network had since it was founded in May 2024: it has improved clarity in decision making, confidence in the role of supervisor, has provided structured mentorship, and improved communication with students.
The event continued with a panel discussion: Gerald Lind faciliated a conversation between panelists chosen to represent different levels of engagement with academic leadership, with Marlene Hock (FWF Austrian Science Fund), Verena Kohler (Umeå University), Evelyn Walenta (Johnson & Johnson), and Eugenia Stamboliev (Universities of Vienna, Prague, and Cottbus). The audience received insights from the level of a funding body trying to shape practices at universities, from a tenure-track professor leading her first research group, from postdoctoral researcher who is leading on several projects spanning different universities, and from an industry leader who works on clinical trials.
- Hock gave recent examples of iniatives by the Austrian Science Fund FWF to improve cultures of leadership at the universities where its funding goes. She stated that for the FWF, excellency is intertwined with culture. If you want new voices, innovative ideas, you need to look at the production environment of science, and see who leaves and who stays in academia. If Austrian research teams lose talent because of a lack in empathy, kindness, or collegiality, this is a problem that needs to be addressed. Needed for this is a system of accountability and structures, not only individual actions. The FWF for example provides unconscious bias awareness materials and training to external reviewers and others involved in selecting grantees, and places a great emphasis on diverse team composition, and there are now also guidelines for what makes a safe and diverse research environment, and how you can report instances of power abuse.
- Kohler in her statement described how, already when planning to become a group leader, she knew she needed knowledge on leadership, and yet her spirit of investing time into trainings wasn’t always well regarded by her environment. One of her useful rules for herself is to give herself time to sleep on it if there are things that don't go well in the lab, so as not to react too “passionately” in the moment. Another learning she shared is that you actually meed to speak about it rather than around it - for this purpose, she has created lab values, which are taken on and referred to and made their own by her team members.
- Stamboliev stated that it is a conscious decison for her to focus on “working well with others”, not just “scientific output”, and it has worked well for her. Due to her many networks and different workplaces, she learned that leadership is always culture-specific and gendered, and that fields have different “climates” (e.g. the arts field vs philosophy). So “climate awareness” is important for a leader. She also stated that kindness should not be the opposite of success and boldness.
- Walenta, who has both academic and industry experience, described that regular training on communication and leadership is mandatory in her field. And it's very useful, because leading very big teams and getting people who don’t report to you to work with you on goals requires a big toolbox. For her, kindness makes sense, because everyone wants to have a good time at work, doing a job they are passionate about. She stated that you can get people to work with you, if you just “translate it into their language”.
Some opinions from the discussion that followed:
- Not everyone wants to be a leader, but everyone should aspire to be a kind collaborator
- Regular leadership refreshers, semesterly, would be great for everyone in a supervisory role
- Starting with trainings already at the PhD level would be ideal
- Reporting and sanctioning people who abuse their power should be more widespread praxis at universities
- There should be a way of scouting for more “quiet”, but possibly very talented leaders
- Coaches who teach leaders in industry would be very useful also for universities
- Leadership trainings should be flexible, short, and mandatory
- Everyone can learn and continue to grow in their leadership role
To conclude the event with another example of collegiality, the 2024/25 Cohort of the Collegial Development programme was honored by the Vice-Rector for Research, Joachim Reidl. This is a group of researchers who spent a year facilitating each other’s professional progress and positively influencing the wider working environment of our academic community here in Graz.
The team spirit then continued outside, with attendees engaging in enriching discussions over soup and dessert. This was our fourth Annual Event, with the topics so far having been:
- Shaping postdoc careers: From short-term contracts to long-term impact (2022)
- Exit to the right: Is academia losing its talents? (2023)
- The settled-down postdoc: Does mobility improve your research? (2024)
- The next opportunity will be April 22 & 23: Research Careers Campus Festival 2026
The Research Careers Campus (which is the new home of the PostDoc Office) is committed to continuing this conversation, and to do our part in creating an environment in which researcher can thrive. We're really grateful that so many people engage with us and contribute to the wonderful community we have here.
Report: 16.4.2025, Johanna Stadlbauer
Schedule:
Welcome Interview: What is good leadership in academia?
- Johanna Stadlbauer interviews Mireille van Poppel and Markus Fallenböck
Opening Talks
- Anita Thaler: The radical transformative power of kindness in academia
- Jelena Tadic & Johann Hlina: Collegiality as a tool for better supervision
Panel discussion: How does good leadership work in practice?
- Gerald Lind talks with Marlene Hock (FWF), Verena Kohler (U. Umeå), Eugenia Stamboliev (U. Wien/Prague/Cottbus) and Evelyn Walenta (Johnson & Johnson)
Collegial Development Programme: Celebration
- Joachim Reidl and Johanna Stadlbauer celebrate with Sebastian Tassoti, Laurin Mackowitz and Saptarshi Mallick