In an exciting development for 2024, our colleague Dr. Birte Seffert embarks on a nationwide tour to meet with the Klaus Tschira Boost Fund Fellows across Germany. The Keeping Up with the Boost Fellows series aims to shine a spotlight on the journeys, challenges, and achievements of our Fellows. 

Want to change institutions during your postdoc? KT Boost Fund fellow Svetlana Klementyeva is next up in our series and has some helpful advice.

Svetlana works at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) where she researches the coordination and organometallic chemistry of rare earth metals with a focus on their redox chemistry, fixation of small molecules, and magnetic properties. An important piece of equipment for her is the glovebox, which allows Svetlana to work with and manipulate the oxygen-sensitive substances in a gas-tight, high-purity inert atmosphere or in a vacuum chamber.

Since Svetlana moved from the University of Tübingen to KIT (where she spent her first postdoc) during her Boost project, Birte Seffert asked what she advises postdocs planning to change their institution:

It´s not easy.

This is what she recommends to keep in mind:

• Apart from what a change of institution can do to advance your science career (e.g., regarding research focus and environment, collaborations, available funding and equipment), you may also have to consider the needs of your partner and kids and how to address them.
• Get to know at least one person from the group before making a decision and gather information on how things are done there, for instance how the team works together, how processes are organized, support in onboarding, what is expected beyond the research, etc.
• Do your research on the group: Is everyone new like you, or will you also have long-established colleagues with a wealth of internal knowledge happy to share and help?
• Think beyond your group: Are there other groups, institutes, etc. interesting to you with whom you have or can establish connections and collaborations so that you have multiple points of contact and people with whom you can share successes and challenges?
• Visit your potential new workplace beforehand to check if it fits what you need.
• Arrange to give a talk to present yourself and your research profile to see if you align with the team and their research interests – and if you feel comfortable and welcome in that environment.
• If you move to a lab in Germany, try to learn some German; it helps you with administration and connecting with German colleagues.

The KT Boost Fund is a joint program of GSO and the Klaus Tschira Foundation for postdoctoral researchers in the Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer Science. It offers flexible funding for risky and interdisciplinary research on the way to academic independence. Funding can be used to hire staff, buy equipment, or build collaborations – tailored to the research project.