History of PhD representatives at GSI

Very early times - The DINI

The Doktoranden-Initiative. More information to come...

2008 - foundation of the SICS

In 2008 there was a group of students forming the Students Initiative concerned with scholarships (SICS). They build up a committee of people from different divisions, consisting of diploma students, PhD students still having a TVöD contract and PhD students already being paid via scholarship. They formed in April 2008 around the elected "PhD representative Robert Klein as a free-to-join group. Over the weeks they constituted a rough organization which we named SICS since their primary task was to clarify conditions concerning the upcoming and partly already running scholarships.

What they did...

The SICS had taken part in the development process of the graduate school and the scholarship system at GSI. They saw themselves as the representatives of the current and future PhD students at this institute. In their point of view it was necessary that those who are the most affected by the changes in the PhD system at GSI had to be represented in this process.

An election of a PhD-representative was organized in February 2009. During a "Grand Informational Meeting" PhD-students working at GSI came together in the lecture hall. A report from the last Helmholtz Junsions meeting was given, ideas for PhD-initiatives at GSI were given, and a PhD-representative was elected.

Now

Currently virtually all PhD Students working are working on scholarships and are part of HGS-HIRe. Because the scholarships come from the Universities, the GSI-PhD-students have no direct relation to GSI. Which sometimes can be a problem for example during allocation of office space. However there is an official connection between the PhD students and GSI: The common graduate school "HGS-HIRe (for FAIR)" encompasses all or most PhD students working on GSI topics. HGS-HIRe members yearly elect a PhD representative who is then also responsible for the students in HGS-HIRe and at GSI. Currently he is what formerly the PhD representative at GSI was.