Supporting meaningful research
The short answer is that I enjoy supporting scientific research, outreach activities and teaching on topics that I find interesting and that have societal value. For instance, the researchers in my team at the Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology in Freiburg work on different topics in pollination ecology, landscape ecology, biodiversity conservation, and multitrophic interactions. But this is not the only reason why I did not further pursue a career as a researcher in philosophy of science and decided to start working in research management.
Many interesting tasks
During my time as a research assistant and doctoral student, I found that I am more of a generalist than a specialist. In addition, I noticed that I started to get bored of my own very specialized research in philosophy of biology and started to engage in other research-related activties like organizing workshops, writing articles for a student magazine, and volunteering as student representative in our Research Training Group’s steering commitee. I also realized that I prefer to engage with scientific work to doing my own research. Finally, I admitted to myself that a research-related job with many different organizational, coordinative and conceptual tasks is more appealing to me than a position in research.
Workplace university
Another reason why I decided to become a research manager is that I really like the university as a workplace. But everyone who has worked as a resesearcher (in Germany) knows that it is difficult to be a researcher and at the same time have a (social) life outside the work environment. I am not only referring to the difficult situation of being a parent and trying to reconcile employment with care work and family life. It is also difficult to maintain friendships and other important relationships when you only get short fixed-term contracts and are therefore forced to relocate multiple times or commute (#IchBinHanna). This is why I decided to take a different career path that would allow me to continue working at the university and engage with scientific research in a meaningful way.
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