On November 2, 2022, a group of interested researchers and professionals from the four universities in Graz gathered to discuss how to prevent and how to handle power abuse in academia. The expert, invited by the PostDoc Office, was Jana Lasser. A Mittelbau representative in the TU senate, as well as a postdoctoral researcher, Lasser has co-founded the Network against Abuse of Power. Lasser was spokesperson for the Max Planck PhDnet and during that time built up a profound expertise in this area. The website of the network describes conditions that make power abuse possible:
„Abuse of power is facilitated by steep hierarchies and strong dependencies between the involved persons. This is particularly the case in academia, which is traditionally characterized by considerable power imbalances between employees and their superiors. The common practice of setting fixed-term employment contracts plays an important role in this context, because this makes the possibility of continuing one's own scientific work permanently and essentially dependent on the goodwill of the respective research group leader. Not infrequently, this situation is exploited, for example, to demand additional labour or coerce employees into questionable scientific procedures. Other factors that enable or promote the abuse of power in the academic environment are the mixing of roles (e.g., the regular coincidence of the role of personnel manager, scientific cooperation partner, and/or reviewer) in a system that is based on self-control, and, on the other hand, a pronounced lack of effective, independent control and enforcement mechanisms.“ (Netzwerk MaWi: Power abuse (netzwerk-mawi.de))
Jana Lasser shared preventative best practices as well as strategies on how to handle active instances of power abuse, highlighting the structural nature of the problem. More information can be found here: Netzwerk MaWi: I am affected (netzwerk-mawi.de)
Helpful external contact points:
- Network against power abuse in academia, https://www.netzwerk-mawi.de/machtmissbrauch
- Österreichische Agentur für wissenschaftliche Integrität, Verstöße gegen die gute wissenschaftliche Praxis, https://oeawi.at/, +43 (0) 1 7106821
- Universitätsgewerkschaft | GÖD BV16: Union for University Employees, Universitätsgewerkschaft | GÖD BV16 (goed.at), https://www.goed.at/leistungen/beratung-bei-konflikten-und-mobbing-am-arbeitsplatz, mobbingberatung@goed.at, Tel.: +43 (0) 534 54 – 211
- Employee advocacy groups are also listed here
Overview of internal Contact Points:
Further reading/materials:
- MOOC on handling power relations at our university, starting mid-November, provided by the Anti-Bias-Circle at the University of Graz