The candidates: Julia Zilles

Since September 2014 I have been working at the Göttingen Institute for Democracy Research. There, I have conducted re­search on local conflicts that came up within the context of the “Energiewende” (‘energy transition’). In my thesis I focus on the local dynamics and effects on political culture that are caused by the local conflicts about the construction of wind power plants. Since October 2016, my doctorate has been funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. There, I am member of the cluster „Transformation Research“. 

Since May 2017 I have been PhD students’ representative at the Faculty of Social Sciences and since last summer I have been PhD students’ representative at GGG, too. Furthermore, I am the vice-speaker of the newly founded university-wide committee of PhD students‘ representations (‘Promovierendenvertretung‘, PromV). At the Institute for Democracy Research I have been equal opportunities officer since 2015.

I studied politics, German philology and philosophy at the Uni­versity of Koblenz and Landau. In my master thesis I already fo­cused on protest research by writing about the pro­test against the Stuttgart 21 project. In Landau I continuously worked as student assistant and tutor at the Institute for Social Sciences and as vacation substitute at the office of the vice-chancellor, which provided me with valuable experience in higher education policies. During my studies, I was repeatedly member of the student parliament and also worked as expert for higher education policies at the student union (AStA) .

Candidacy details

Again, I would like to run for the post of GGG PhD students’ representative. In the last term of office, I got used to the work with the GGG executive board, I established new communication channels and I would like to continue with this work. From my point of view it is wise to channel the efforts of PhD students in the different committees. I have thus managed to make quite a few contacts during the last year.

I want to stand up for further improvement of both the visibility and status of PhD students. To achieve this, I think these three aspects are paramount at the moment:

1. I want to ensure that PhD students with a scholarship can again be employed as scientific staff (‘wissenschaftliche/r Mitarbeiter/in’) instead of being punished for external financing by downgrading them to graduate assistants (‘wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft’).
2. I want to stand up for improving the situation of PhD students who are not employed at the university, e.g. concerning the loan period at the library. In my opinion, this group with its specific needs is ignored too often.
3. With regard to the university boards, I think, it is important that PhD students become fully acknowledged as a specific status group and therefore get voting rights in the faculty councils and senate, too.

In my (higher educations) political work I would like to put further emphasis on equal opportunities, especially regarding parents. As GGG students’ representative I want to stand up for (further) improving the conditions of PhD students with children, both within GGG and the faculty. To achieve this, I can make use of my experience from working as equal opportunities officer at the Institute for Democracy Research.