The Person Behind the Scientist: Nurturing Personalities
By Julia Becker by order of the JSMC

When Xinran Liu arrived at the School for Microbial Communication (JSMC) in Jena to start her doctorate, it was her first trip to Europe. Of course she was nervous: Would things with the flat in Jena work out? What would the city be like? Would she able to communicate with people?

But the scientist's worries quickly disappeared when she realised that everything was perfectly organised: the management of the graduate school had arranged a flat for her in the university's guest house and taken care of the bureaucratic hurdles, conversation in English was a matter of course, and the city of Jena immediately appealed to the young woman from China: "Life is peaceful and people are helpful", says the 26-year-old, "When I saw the mountains all around the city and the beautiful river, I immediately felt at home."

Xinran Liu is one of 40 JSMC fellowship holders (see inset). The scientist from China won out against hundreds of competitors in a multi-stage recruitment process. Liu chose to complete her doctorate in Germany because this is where she sees the best conditions for her scientific career: "Germany is top of the league when it comes to science, and here at JSMC I receive first-class training", explains the hydrologist.

An interdisciplinary network

Crisanto Lopez, who came to Thuringia from Manila, has an equally positive opinion of post-graduate study in Jena: "The programme at JSMC is outstanding and designed to meet the needs of excellent, international scientists. The interdisciplinary network is really very well organised here", says the 30-year-old. Biologists, physicists, geoscientists, computational biologists, chemists and medical scientists collaborate across disciplines at JSMC. "This enormous network of scientists and partners from industry is very well co-ordinated here", agrees his colleague Liu.

On her arrival in Jena, Liu immediately made contacts and friends among her colleagues. One reason for this is that the approximately 150 doctoral candidates at JSMC are offered a huge range of opportunities to organise themselves: for example, the scientists plan leisure activities such as canoeing or mountaineering, or hold grill parties.


"We try very hard to entice our fellow students out of their labs and show them life in and around Jena", says PhD student representative Frank Schindler, "and thanks to the shared activities, friends can be found very quickly here." The 31-year-old microbiologist is the student representative for the over 150 postgraduate students at JSMC and represents their interests on the executive board of JSMC.