This week, the new Rektor of the University of Zurich started his job. There were several articles and interviews in various newspapers, where he announced what he wants to do next and what his long-term goals are. In one article in the NZZ am Sonntag, one sentence struck me: "Wirklich geforscht habe er zuletzt als Doktorand" (The last time he did serious research was as a doctoral student). And he apparently regrets that.
This statement made me wonder: What's your task as postdoc or as professor? When it's not research, is it about writing grant and project proposals for other people only? Is it mainly about teaching (looking at the workload, you could think so, I will comment on that in a later post)? Or are your days filled with more administrative stuff, the higher your professional rank is?
There are several indicators that in fact, postdocs and professors acquire the money to then hire some doctoral student(s) to carry out the research the applicants have a genuine interest in. For example, with the Swiss National Science Foundation, postdocs cannot submit proposals where they actually would carry out the research themselves (except for the Ambizione program, but that has specific requirements and is part of the career track, not of the project track). You can submit a proposal and then hire someone -- but the proposal will be evaluated against the applicant's research profile. The DFG (German Research Foundation) recently introduced an instrument where you can apply for a grant for your own position as postdoc. So this looks a bit better.
On the other hand: As a doctoral student, you are not eligible to submit proposals, so you have to find a postdoc or a professor who submits a project proposal you can then carry out.
Given that proposal writing is a serious but tedious task, there is of course less time to actually do some research. Some universities in Germany have decided that some professors (rank W1 and sometimes even rank W2) cannot negotiate about academic personnel -- there simply will be no academic personnel, you have to write proposals to hopefully acquire third-party money to hire a teaching assistant or a doctoral student. Isn't that weird? Public universities are funded by tax payers, so shouldn't that cover all costs to run a university including all personnel needed? Third-party funding today makes up almost a quarter of the budget of German universities. On the one hand, it's a good sign: researchers find people who think the proposed research is worth funding it. But it's also a bad sign: The state is only able (or willing) to fund three quarters of universities' budgets. But that's more of a political discussion, I think.
However, there seems to be the general perception, that after your doctoral studies, there will be no time for serious research. I recently heard the conversation of two PhD students: A just submitted his thesis and told B that he would have liked to investigate a slightly different topic, but his supervisor told him not to do so because of the risk of failure -- his research could have produced negative results. They both agreed that this would have been more interesting and even more fun than to do something one could somehow even predict the results. And then B concluded: "Only doctoral students do real science, so why don't they let us do risky things? After your dissertation, you will not be able to really investigate something anymore." Isn't that weird? It seems to be widely accepted that your scientific life won't include research after you defended your dissertation; at the same time, it is assumed that you can only do "real" research if you've obtained a PhD, i.e., submit research proposals ...
I really have some research interests in computational morphology, computational phraseology, and writing technology where I would appreciate the help of master students or doctoral students, but where I would also like to explore some things myself -- even if this includes tedious annotation or hacking. That's fun and only this way you can really discover something new. I definitely aim to facilitate research by coordinating and managing projects, but I would still like to be part of the actual investigation.
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bureaucracy. Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Professor for one year (week 28): Another German compound process: Reisekostenrückerstattung (travel reimbursement)
Last week, I wrote about my conference tour this fall. As this tour had no private aspects, it was a "Dienstreise" (business trip) and in that case, you can get a reimbursement for your traveling costs -- train or plane, hotel, conference fees, etc. In German, that's "Reisekostenrückerstattung" and it's not only a compound, it's also complex.
In Konstanz, you have to fill this two-page form:
It first asks for your address and some personal data and your bank account in the left part of the first page -- this part is easy. Then you find seven points of instruction how to fill out the reverse side. Generally, if you need complex instructions for a form, it's a badly designed form. So this is a first hint that the whole process might not be an easy one.
You have to state when and where you started your travel, when and where it ended and when the "Dienstgeschäft" -- the reason for your travel -- started and ended. If you remember last week's post, I started my tour in Paris (not my usual "Dienststelle" (place of employment) nor my "Wohnort" (residence) and neither in one of the corresponding countries) and it ended in Zurich (my residence, but a different country than my "Dienstort"). I went from Paris to Berlin to Zurich (for a short stop-over and exchange of cloths) to Florence -- so from France to Germany to Switzerland to Italy. I crossed three borders and I would have to state the exact time when I crossed which border -- I never heard the captain of a plane announcing that just now we would be crossing a border, so I invented a time. For the hotel where you stayed you have to justify why you stayed in exactly this hotel. Of course for Florence and Berlin it's "Nähe zum Dienstgeschäft, Einsparung von Fahrtkosten" -- it wouldn't have been possible to commute. But these boxes look like check boxes, not radio buttons, so should I also tick other possibilities? But it was different for Berlin and for Florence. But then, these boxes are identical to the ones you have to choose for the end point and starting point of your travels and here it's impossible to start from two or more places at the same time, so maybe they are both radio buttons. I treat them this way.
Interestingly, if you don't travel by train, bus, or plane but by "Kfz" (motor vehicle), you have to state the "Hubraum" (engine displacement) -- up to 600ccm or more. There are probably different reimbursement rules depending on whether you go by Harley or by VW van.
You have to input the amount of money you spent, but no currency is given. So do I have to convert expense in CHF and US$ to € or just state them? I chose the latter and wait what will happen.
For comparison, this is the form the Institute of Informatics at the University of Zurich uses:
Yes, apart from stating address and bank account, it's a simple table where you insert the kind of expense you asking reimbursement for. And it's even assumed that you might have had expenses in different currencies. It's a simple single-page form. You might invent other layouts for this form, but the important part is that you don't spend hours with filling the form. The German Department at the University of Basel had a similar simple document. For reimbursements by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences there isn't even a form, you submit receipts for all your expenses, state your bank account and address and that's it.
And don't forget to add your "Dienstreisegenehmigung" (business trip approval). For this I had to fill an even worse designed two-page document beforehand asking all kind of things -- but not about estimated costs. It has even more explanations and the parts to be filled out by you are scattered to the two pages.
You even have to fill this document for trips you won't ask for reimbursement. I guess the main reason for those approvals are insurance issues: You have insurance at your place of employment, but for all other places you need a private insurance. So if something happens outside your office, the employers insurance is responsible only if he approved that it was necessary that you had to be outside your office. It's different in Switzerland: As soon as you work more than 8 hours a week, you're insured via the employer for accidents inside and outside your office ("Berufsunfall- und Nichtberufsunfallversicherung"). So there is no need to get official approval to meet with colleagues or clients for a meeting outside your office -- you only need to get approval in case you ask for reimbursement of travel costs as different grants or accounts might be used to cover your expenses.
I guess the more badly-designed documents you have to fill, the more you get accustomed to fill them without thinking. But this is no good excuse to design poor documents! And I even haven't mentioned the language used in those forms -- it is far from plain language. There is much room for improvement from a document design point of view.
In Konstanz, you have to fill this two-page form:
You have to state when and where you started your travel, when and where it ended and when the "Dienstgeschäft" -- the reason for your travel -- started and ended. If you remember last week's post, I started my tour in Paris (not my usual "Dienststelle" (place of employment) nor my "Wohnort" (residence) and neither in one of the corresponding countries) and it ended in Zurich (my residence, but a different country than my "Dienstort"). I went from Paris to Berlin to Zurich (for a short stop-over and exchange of cloths) to Florence -- so from France to Germany to Switzerland to Italy. I crossed three borders and I would have to state the exact time when I crossed which border -- I never heard the captain of a plane announcing that just now we would be crossing a border, so I invented a time. For the hotel where you stayed you have to justify why you stayed in exactly this hotel. Of course for Florence and Berlin it's "Nähe zum Dienstgeschäft, Einsparung von Fahrtkosten" -- it wouldn't have been possible to commute. But these boxes look like check boxes, not radio buttons, so should I also tick other possibilities? But it was different for Berlin and for Florence. But then, these boxes are identical to the ones you have to choose for the end point and starting point of your travels and here it's impossible to start from two or more places at the same time, so maybe they are both radio buttons. I treat them this way.
Interestingly, if you don't travel by train, bus, or plane but by "Kfz" (motor vehicle), you have to state the "Hubraum" (engine displacement) -- up to 600ccm or more. There are probably different reimbursement rules depending on whether you go by Harley or by VW van.
You have to input the amount of money you spent, but no currency is given. So do I have to convert expense in CHF and US$ to € or just state them? I chose the latter and wait what will happen.
For comparison, this is the form the Institute of Informatics at the University of Zurich uses:
Yes, apart from stating address and bank account, it's a simple table where you insert the kind of expense you asking reimbursement for. And it's even assumed that you might have had expenses in different currencies. It's a simple single-page form. You might invent other layouts for this form, but the important part is that you don't spend hours with filling the form. The German Department at the University of Basel had a similar simple document. For reimbursements by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences there isn't even a form, you submit receipts for all your expenses, state your bank account and address and that's it.
And don't forget to add your "Dienstreisegenehmigung" (business trip approval). For this I had to fill an even worse designed two-page document beforehand asking all kind of things -- but not about estimated costs. It has even more explanations and the parts to be filled out by you are scattered to the two pages.
You even have to fill this document for trips you won't ask for reimbursement. I guess the main reason for those approvals are insurance issues: You have insurance at your place of employment, but for all other places you need a private insurance. So if something happens outside your office, the employers insurance is responsible only if he approved that it was necessary that you had to be outside your office. It's different in Switzerland: As soon as you work more than 8 hours a week, you're insured via the employer for accidents inside and outside your office ("Berufsunfall- und Nichtberufsunfallversicherung"). So there is no need to get official approval to meet with colleagues or clients for a meeting outside your office -- you only need to get approval in case you ask for reimbursement of travel costs as different grants or accounts might be used to cover your expenses.
I guess the more badly-designed documents you have to fill, the more you get accustomed to fill them without thinking. But this is no good excuse to design poor documents! And I even haven't mentioned the language used in those forms -- it is far from plain language. There is much room for improvement from a document design point of view.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)