Remembering Volkmar Pipek - on being curious, being you

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Welcome to Changing Academic Life.

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I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick and this is

a podcast series where academics and

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others share their stories, provide

ideas and provoke discussions about what

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we can do individually and collectively

to change academic life for the better.

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Sometimes in the midst of all our

busy-ness and deadlines our pressures

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to perform and advance our careers.

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We can forget that life

is actually really short.

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And really precious.

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And we can lose perspective about

our work and what's really important.

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The passing of a very dear colleague

th of January,: 2024

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Was a stark reminder of this for me.

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Volkmar died after a long

illness at the age of 56.

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Before he died.

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He was asked for advice to younger

colleagues and to researchers in general.

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And he summed these up as be curious.

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Be who you are.

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And be curious who you are.

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Wise advice from Volkmar that he

offered as part of an interview that

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was conducted on the occasion of his

being awarded the EUSSET and ISSI

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lifetime achievement award in 2023.

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EUSSET is the European society for

socially embedded technologies and ISSI

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is the Institute for socio informatics.

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To mark this award Mateusz Dolata

from the university of Zurich

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and with his hat as website and

social media person for EUSSET.

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Conducted an interview with On

his perspectives of CSCW, which is

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computer supported cooperative work

and research in general, including

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his advice for younger researchers.

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To quote from the EUSSET web page.

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Posted by Mateusz.

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The interview was published post hum.

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Following the sad passing

of Volkmar in January,: 2024

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Before that he'd provided us with

the initial draft of the interview.

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After much deliberation, we decided to

share Volkmar's, insightful thoughts

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with the broader community in this form.

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End of quote.

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In this short episode, I'd like to share

an extract from Volkmar's interview.

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That specifically focuses on his advice.

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I share this with the permission

of Mateusz and of the head

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of the awards committee.

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As full disclosure.

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I was also a member of

this awards committee.

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First a little background on Volkmar.

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He was a faculty member in

computer supported cooperative

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work and social media, at the

university of Siegen in Germany.

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And his award was for his pioneering

work in the field of socio informatics.

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This work was uniquely driven and shaped

by his strongly held values around

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societal emancipation and democratization.

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And you can read more about this and his

many specific intellectual and empirical

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contributions in the statement about

his award and in the full interview.

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And I'll put links to both of

these on the episode, webpage.

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I've also known Volkmar for some

decades as a fellow colleague and

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researcher in the CSCW community.

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And always loved meeting up and chatting

with him, not just about his research.

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But just about the many ways that

his values played out in his life

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and the choices that he made.

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For example, in the interview,

you'll be able to read about his

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experience in starting a commune

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now to the extract from

the full interview.

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And it starts with the question posed

by Mateusz on behalf of EUSSET and

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then follows with Volkmar's answers.

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Begin quote.

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EUSSET remains a very young organization.

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One-third of active use set

members of PhD students.

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And there are equally many young

members working as postdocs

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or assistant professors.

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Many of the members are looking up to

you as an eminent authority, seeking an

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advice concerning research, focus, career

paths, or simply becoming a researcher.

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What would be your message to them?

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And Volkmar's response.

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Be curious.

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Be who you are.

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Be curious who you are.

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First be curious.

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For being a good researcher,

you need to take a deep interest

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into the world as it is.

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How it became like that.

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And where it's heading.

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With deep.

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I mean, that, it's important to

also acknowledge those aspects

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that are not in line with your

own convictions and experiences.

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As a young PhD researcher who took pride

in his participatory design attitude.

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I had to present the project.

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I was working into the worker

representative counsel of one of the

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largest German, private health insurance

companies in order to get their

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approval and ideally their support.

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I rarely spoke to a less interested crowd

in my life and got a very board approval.

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I left the meeting with the impression

those worker representatives

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were just not doing their job.

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But I picked that experience up and

tried to find out how that could

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be given that they volunteered

for the job and had been elected.

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That spark of interest helped

me finding out how difficult it

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actually is for practitioners.

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To imagine how their work would change.

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Given there are new software tools or

information infrastructures available.

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And given that impact

is so hard to imagine.

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Why should they not instead turn their

attention to much more obvious topics.

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Second.

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Be who you are.

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With a bachelor's thesis and

maybe also with a master's thesis.

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You may be able to regard those

as tasks that have to get executed

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in order to earn your certificate.

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And their exact topics and results

may never matter to you or to

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anybody in your future career.

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If you pursue a PhD with that attitude.

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It will be even more painful

and exhausting as it is anyway.

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If you stick with the topic for

three to five years, it will

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become a huge part of your life.

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And research suddenly becomes a very

personal, even intimate endeavor.

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It does not make sense to

undertake this endeavor.

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Just because there is funding

and a supervisor who finds

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you somewhat interesting.

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The topic, the methodology, the

scientific community report to.

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They all should fit your interests,

beliefs, experiences, and personality.

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In the final years of my master's

studies, I developed the idea that I

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could be a researcher in computer science.

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I had specialized on artificial

intelligence and even visited

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some national conferences.

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Due to a private contact.

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I stumbled across the book,

informatic and Gesellschaft, which

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is computer science and society.

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Co-authored by Thomas Herman, also

a member of the CSCW community.

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Which gave me for the first time,

the impression that there could

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be the option to pursue my general

interest into improving society.

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Also as a researcher in CS.

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I started out working for the DFK

I that German national research

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center for artificial intelligence.

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But then decided to change

to the university of Bonn.

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Although I'd been offered a

contract for only 10 months there.

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Although I had literally no clue

about the competences requested,

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which was CSCW and usability and

showed that in my job interview.

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Although all exclamation mark of

my future colleagues, therefore

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voted for another candidate.

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And although their boss

hired me, nevertheless, just

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based on my knowledge in AI.

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Not because I would particularly

fit the advertisement position.

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I did so.

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Just because former colleagues

of that group had shown an

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interest in electronic democracy.

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And I really wanted to learn to

work with users because that did

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fit my interest profile better.

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That was more who I was.

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Third.

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Be curious who you are.

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A PhD is usually located at a time

in your life when you've placed the

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first cornerstones of your life.

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You decided to finish an education

that would hopefully feed you

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for the rest of your life.

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You may have, or have had a

first long-term relationship.

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You may have moved and settled

in a new town for the first time.

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But things are still in motion.

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Life in general.

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And a PhD process for sure

will provide you with many new

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experiences and challenges that

have the potential to change you.

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That's okay.

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So don't stick too strongly

to your concerns and beliefs.

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Go with the flow and trust,

rather your skills of improvisers

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station, then your fear of change.

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That particularly applies to

your research topics and career.

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Before I submitted my PhD on

supporting appropriation work.

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I've been offered, interested in

PhD topics, including privacy in

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group work group, where there was

unpublished research available

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that I could have built upon.

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Also in metadata structures

for environmental informatics.

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And project money available for that.

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And inductive logic programming.

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And approach that would have allowed me

to continue with AI, with applications

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in CSCW my own idea, but really far out.

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The final topic appropriation.

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Only emerged in my third year as a PhD.

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And it took me three more

years to complete it.

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Not only to technically write it.

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But also in terms of re-interpreting

my research experiences so that they

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would form a whole in the dissertation.

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Well, I did not expect to be able

to combine my social political

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and technological interests.

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When I started my research career.

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I grew more and more confident

of myself to be able to do that.

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End of quoted extract.

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Thank you Volkmar there's so

much wisdom and insight here.

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From the perspective of.

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Distance.

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Be curious.

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Be who you are.

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Be curious who you are.

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And I, I loved that statement as part of

the third, be curious who you are about.

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Go with the flow and trust, rather

your skills of improvisation

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than your fear of change.

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I encourage you to go and read the

whole interview that Volkmar shared.

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I'm sure you'll love it.

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And it just provides such great

food for thought about, again,

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an example of a career path that

hasn't been straightforward and the

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work that's involved and the reward

that's attached with shaping career

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decisions, research decisions, life

decisions in line with what you really

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care about and with your values.

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And the difference we

can make in doing that.

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So again, thank you.

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Volkmar.

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And thank you.

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Mateusz for the interview and for

allowing us to share it here.

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And we'll finish with Volkmar's

final thought, from the interview,

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which locates our research endeavors

as part of a scholarly community.

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That's caring and inclusive.

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To start quoting from Volkmar

directly and I'll leave out some

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of the specific names he mentioned

just to keep it more general.

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But you can read this in

the interview itself.

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So Volkmar says.

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And as a final thought, I cannot

express enough gratitude for the

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general kindness and the respect I

experienced in this scientific community.

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As a young researcher, I

joined the community based on

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a certain political enthusiasm.

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Not based on a sound

education and much knowledge.

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Yet my colleagues accepted their

bosses decision to hire me.

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And took on the effort to

introduce me to the field.

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In the first years of my career, I've

been introduced to important scholars.

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Not based on my own scientific

merits, but based on a general

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culture of inclusiveness and

respect of this community.

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Aside from providing a nice feeling and

interesting discussion opportunities.

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It also shows in the

formal scientific process.

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The way, how respectfully reviews

are being written and how easy it

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is to access, reviewing committees.

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That's an asset.

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We can be proud of.

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And what we should cultivate.

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End of quote.

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And in honour of Volkmar.

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May we all play our own part in showing

kindness and respect to one another.

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And being part of creating that

inclusive scientific community . And

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remembering that life is short.

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And precious.

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You can find the summary

notes, a transcript and related

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links for this podcast on www.

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changingacademiclife.

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com.

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