Counselling in Supervision Conflicts
Contact information of the current committee members (intranet, only accessible for Forschungszentrum Jülich users).
The JuDocS Committee for Counselling in Supervision Conflicts offers support to doctoral researchers and supervisors who are confronted with a supervision conflict that they cannot solve alone or with help from peers.
Supervision conflicts may arise during doctoral projects due to the different perspectives of supervisors and doctoral researchers on individual projects and often competitive framework conditions in science. All six members of the JuDocS Committee are active researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich who are familiar with the general conditions and common conflict situations. They offer neutral counselling and also, if necessary, conflict moderation based on the following principles:
Confidentiality: The committee members become active upon request and coordinate all steps in a counselling process with the person who is seeking the advice. Personal information is never disclosed to third parties either during or after the counselling process.
Inclusion of diverse perspectives: Among the members of the committee are doctoral researchers, supervisors and institute heads of different genders and nationalities, which has the benefit of including various perspectives and levels of professional experience. Counselling and conflict moderation are always carried out in accordance with the dual control principle by involving two committee members with different levels of experience in every counselling process.
Qualification: All committee members have received training in counselling and conflict moderation techniques before they take office.
Multilevel approach: If a conflict cannot be solved with the help of the committee and the person who is seeking the advice agrees, the JuDocS heads can be involved by the committee members to search for a solution. The same applies if another counselling service on campus is able to provide better help in a specific situation due to the often complex nature of conflicts. In this case, the committee members will offer to contact the other service and to accompany the transfer to provide continuous and appropriate support. This only happens after the explicit consent of the person who is seeking help is given.
Joint action and openness to results: The aim of the counselling process is always to enable the involved persons to find a way to successfully complete the scientific project(s) together. The role of the committee is to support the communication and conflict resolution between the involved parties through counselling and moderation. For this to succeed, you should be prepared to agree with the committee on an appropriate joint approach to resolve the conflict. Against this background, it is generally not advisable to contact several counselling services in parallel. The committee members will refer you to other counselling services of the Forschungszentrum Jülich if necessary. The role of the committee allows it to support you in resolving a conflict, but it cannot enforce a solution in a legally binding manner. Therefore, the outcome of the conflict resolution process always depends largely on the willingness of the parties involved to find a joint solution.