PostDoc Office Annual Event 2025

This year, speakers and discussants will explore collegiality, good leadership, and kindness in academia. 

Experts will give insights into ongoing changes in the higher education sector such as reforms of research assessment, increased focus on leadership skills, and improving research culture through work on collegiality. Researchers will share practices that work in their environment. 

Preliminary schedule:

4pm: Welcome Interview with Mireille van Poppel (Vice-Rector for Internationalization and Equal Opportunities) and Markus Fallenböck (Vice-Rector for Human Resources and Digitalisation), both University of Graz

• What is good leadership in academia?

4.15pm: Opening Talks

1. Anita Thaler (Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture IFZ, Graz): Academic Kindness
2. tbc: How can collegiality be implemented as an organizational model at the university?

5.15pm: Round Table

• How does good leadership work in practice? In the Austrian research landscape, at institutions, in research groups, and among peers (Verena Kohler, Umeå University, and three other panelists)

6.15pm: PostDoc Peer Mentoring Certification Ceremony

• Joachim Reidl (Vice-Rector for Research, University of Graz) & the members of the Peer Mentoring Team

6.30pm: End of Event

As always, we expect the discussions at the Annual Event to be controversial and solution-focussed at the same time. Food & drinks will be provided throughout. More details on speakers & registration will be disclosed as they are confirmed. 

About the speakers:

Markus Fallenböck has been working on the legal and economic implementation of digital transformation for more than 20 years. He is Vice-Rector for Human Resources and Digitalisation. He teaches as a professor at the Institute for Public Law and Political Science and headed the Department of Finance, Human Resources and Law at the University of Continuing Education Krems until September 2022.

Anita Thaler is a senior researcher at Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ) in Graz.
Thaler heads the research area Gender, Science and Technology and the working group Queer STS, and is the Austrian representative of the Management Committee of the COST Action VOICES. Thaler's research analyses mutual interactions of science, technology and society, with a focus on transition and learning processes towards sustainability and social gender justice. Anita Thaler is a certified work psychologist and has also studied educational sciences and women’s and gender studies at the University of Graz and the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. Anita Thaler and Daniela Jauk-Ajamie have edited the Queer STS Forum #7 2022 titled "Towards Academic Kindness – A queer-feminist string figure on kinder working cultures in academia".

Verena Kohler is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Molecular Biology at Umeå University in Sweden. Since October 2023. she heads the research group Implications of ageing and disease on cellular protein quality control. As a new PI, she continually reflects on best practice in leadership and effective team dynamics. Kohler has worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Stockholm and Graz, and previously held an Erwin Schrödinger Fellowship from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). She did her PhD research at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz. Her research focusses on cellular proteostasis, particularly during ageing, as well as the significance of membrane contact sites.

Joachim Reidl has been a university professor of microbiology at the Institute of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Graz since 2007, where he has since become a specialist in bacterial infectiology and the modes of action of antibiotics. In doing so, he leads a research group that focuses on studying the interaction between bacteria and host. Since 2016, Reidl has been a co-referee at the Austrian Science Fund FWF. He has already authored more than 70 scientific publications. Since May 2021, Reidl has been Vice-Rector for Research and Promotion of Young Researchers at the University of Graz, and in that role been responsible for the Doctoral Academy and the PostDoc Office.

Mireille van Poppel is a medical biologist and has been a professor at the Institute of Exercise Science, Sport and Health since 2015 at our university. Integrated in an international network, her focus areas include the role of exercise for prevention, intervention and public health. She is Vice-Rector for Internationalization and Equal Opportunities at the University of Graz and is the responsible rectorate member for the Doctoral Academy and PostDoc Office.