Life as a DKFZ PhD Student

Our aim is to not only foster a welcoming environment for PhD candidates during selection rounds but also to help our newest PhD colleagues in their first steps at DKFZ. Being a newcomer can be tough, so we would like to show new students the possibilities that DKFZ and Heidelberg can offer and how they can make the most of their PhD life!

This team is a place where you could improve your project management skills. Here, you will be involved in organizing the annual PhD Retreat, which all PhD candidates must attend at some point during their doctoral studies. The format of the retreat is similar to a conference, where PhD projects are presented either as posters or short talks. In addition, the retreat provides workshops for doctoral researchers to enhance their professional skills, talks about various PhD-related aspects and, last but not least, team building and networking activities. If you would like to get hands-on experience orchestrating all these parts of retreat in a fun and engaging way, this is the right place for you!

Do you like organizing events and creating fun for other people while having fun yourself? Have you ever wondered how it is to organize such events at the DKFZ? Then don't look further, this is the right team for you!
Together, we will organize Happy Hours, Pub Quizzes, Movie nights, Beach-volleyball tournaments, and much more! We also organize PhD clubs (such as salsa, hiking, board-game and running clubs) and we are always looking for more ideas to introduce new ones!
We believe that social activities are crucial to make connections and to make sure we are always fresh and motivated to go to the lab and do outstanding science. As SEN team, we provide opportunities to take a break from your experiments and meet your fellow PhD colleagues in an informal environment. If you enjoy life beyond the lab and want to share your creative ideas to bring people together, this team is a perfect fit for you!

This team is the right place for you if you want to leave a mark and improve the conditions of the PhD candidates at the DKFZ. We propose a variety of ways to support the PhD life and to make a difference while doing your research. For instance, we aim to work closely with activities related to: mental health awareness, language exchange, diversity at the DKFZ, PhD talk shows/contests and much more! Just to give you an idea of what can be done, former councils supported the processes to get PhD employment contracts instead of stipends, and increase the annual leave to 30 days of holidays per year (instead of just 20), among others. Furthermore, if you want to brainstorm with us and experience the real process of how changes are made, the PhD support team is the right place for you. We are still on our way to make our PhD life better and we are counting on you to join us!

If you like writing and want to raise you voice and spread your ideas, the communication team is a perfect fit for you. We aim to enhance the communication for and among PhD candidates, and keep everyone updated on what's going on in our lives by sending out a PhD newsletter every 2-3 months to everyone at the DKFZ. We are also responsible for our social media engagement where we show the highlights (and struggles) of our PhD life at the DKFZ. We also create a space for people interested in science communication to meet with professionals and have their first (or not) hands-on experience in this field. Another part of our work includes supporting and collaborating with other PhD teams and Helmholtz Juniors, promoting useful resources, and advertising events and activities that may be interesting to you.

Helmholtz Juniors (HeJu) as a whole is made up of at least two doctoral researchers (aka, representatives) from each Helmholtz center, who usually work with us for at least a year. At the DKFZ, the two HeJu representatives are elected together with the new PhD Council in November every year. The elected HeJu might or not also be a Council member.

Helmholtz Juniors aims at being a dynamic team and being able to respond flexibly to the current needs and requirements of doctoral researchers within the Helmholtz Association. Each year we elect two spokespersons to represent Helmholtz Juniors within and outside the Helmholtz Association.

In 2017, Helmholtz Juniors joined forces with Max Planck PhDnet and Leibniz PhD Network to form a ‘network of networks’, or N². This platform aims to address broad topics relevant to doctoral researchers.

Helmholtz Juniors as a whole meet twice a year: once in one of the Helmholtz centers in late winter, and once in the headquarters of the Helmholtz Association in Berlin in summer. These meetings give us the opportunity to discuss and exchange information, and to coordinate our work and new initiatives.

The majority of the work we do is split into a number of different working groups. We currently have four active working groups: working conditions, surveys, events, and communication. Have a look at our website, blog or Social Media for more information on what we do!