News
13.03.2024
Launch of Transformation Studies Master Website
We are happy to announce that the website for the new Transformation Studies Master has now been launched. The new Master study programme starts in winter term 2024/25.
More Information: https: //www.b-tu.de/en/transformation-studies-ma/
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01.03.2024
REGISTER NOW! Fit4Future Summer School 2024: "Powering tomorrow: Doing Research on Sustainable Energy Transition"
The Fit4Future Summer School 2024 will be a dynamic learning environment where postgraduate excellence meets the challenges of tomorrow. Our thematic focus for this edition is the critical analysis of transitions to sustainable and clean energy. Against the backdrop of the escalating challenges of climate change, this focus on sustainable energy solutions is more important than ever.
Dates:
- Online sessions CET: 24 May 13:00-15:00/ 17 June 14:00-18:00/ 05 July 14:00-18:00
- Onsite sessions in Cottbus, Germany: 10-12 September
- Onsite sessions in Poznan, Poland: 12-13 September
- Optional Writing Retreat at Haus des Wandels e.V. Steinhöfel/ Germany: 14-15 September
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06.12.2023
Statement by the Chair of Sociology of Technology and Environment on the collective bargaining in December 2023
On 7 December, we, the staff members of the chair, will take part in the all-day warning strike, interrupt the daily routine of our department and join the demands and actions of the nationwide collective bargaining movement. The department management is showing solidarity with the demands of the employees. We, employees from research, teaching and administration, are prepared to fight for better working conditions at BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and in the entire academic education sector as part of the current collective bargaining dispute and beyond.
As in many places in the education sector, working conditions at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg have been deteriorating for years and are often no longer acceptable. The situation in administration is particularly drastic: staff shortages, overwork, unattractive pay, lack of inflation compensation, high staff turnover. (As a result, administrative expertise is being lost and new appointments are being delayed. We now perceive this as a downward spiral. We are all suffering from this situation; it threatens to undermine good teaching and research throughout the university.
Administrative staff are the foundation of everyday academic life. They form the knowledgeable and most stable core of our university. They ensure the smooth running of academic life and are the central pillar of self-administration. The secretariats perform demanding, managerial assistance work. A substantial pay rise is urgently needed. A revision of the job profiles and upgrading of our secretarial positions is also long overdue. It will only be possible to break the downward spiral by upgrading and reducing the workload of these positions.
Student assistants are also indispensable in research and teaching. However, their pay is stagnating at minimum wage level, while the cost of living is rising enormously due to inflation, even in Cottbus. We demand remuneration for student assistants that makes a substantial contribution to students' livelihoods. SHK positions must not be a privilege of well-off students and a threat to progress in their studies.
Teachingand research fellows not only make significant contributions to research, but are also central to teaching. However, they are largely employed on a temporary and part-time basis. Uncertain future prospects, short-term contracts and structurally enforced unpaid work not only harm the employees, but the entire university organisation.
All of us - administrative staff, student employees, mid-level staff, professors and, of course, students - suffer under these conditions and share the same concerns. Together, we work tirelessly to ensure that teaching, research and administration function properly. But this is becoming more difficult every year. Good and critical research and teaching, the core tasks of the university, are jeopardised. Some of these problems can be addressed in the current round of collective bargaining or at BTU level.
We will also have to tackle the underfunding of the university and the precarisation of academic work at various levels in the coming years so that the university can fulfil its social role. One example of this is the logic of third-party funded projects, which we have to deal with. It is a paradox of the neoliberal university that higher wages for academic staff do not mean higher project budgets in externally funded projects. Wage increases de facto lead to a reduction in project time with a corresponding increase in the volume of work in a shorter period of time. This effect clearly shows that financing university research predominantly through third-party funding is an unsustainable approach that leads to stress, wear and tear and poor quality. We are in favour of completely different basic funding for research and teaching, which is not measured by neoliberal so-called excellence and competition criteria, but by the question of what working conditions are necessary for good research and teaching.
We show solidarity across all statuses. In view of the exploding cost of living, wage increases of over 10%, or at least €500 more, are essential, especially for the lower pay grades. Good working conditions in administration, service, technology, research and teaching are essential for a functioning university and excellent and critical science.
06 December 2023
Link to the GEW Brandenburg strike call: https://www.gew-brandenburg.de/2023/12/presseerklaerung/