World Café organized by Forum Transregionale Studien and the Berlin Research 50 (BR50) initiative’s Interest Group “Third-Party Funding and Career Advice”, in cooperation with GSO – Guidance, Skills and Opportunties for Researchers e.V.
Over the past few years, we have observed within our institutions that international postdoctoral Fellows who wish to stay in Berlin after their Fellowships increasingly pursue careers outside academia. Beyond individual motivations, this tendency is linked to the limited availability and accessibility of academic positions in Germany, particularly for those who do not hold a degree from a German university. Assuming that many international postdocs in Berlin are dealing with similar questions about their professional future, this event invites those interested in exploring career opportunities beyond academia.
In the interactive format of a “World Café”, invited speakers who have transitioned out of academia will share their experiences at four thematic discussion tables, offering personal insights into career paths in journalism, cultural work, education, and policy-related work in NGOs and Think Tanks in Berlin. Alongside addressing the opportunities, challenges, and obstacles encountered on their career paths, the speakers will reflect on how academic skills can be applied in non-academic contexts and how to get access to the structural knowledge and networks necessary for entering alternative professional fields. There will be time for discussion, exchange and networking throughout the event.
Program:
10:00-10:15 | Welcome and introduction
10:15-10:45 | Impulse talk by Anne Schreiter (GSO e.V.)
10:45-11:45 | World Café with four thematic tables:
Journalism
Speaker: Enrico De Angelis (Media Research Consultant)
Culture
Speaker: Kateryna Mishchenko (Writer and Curator)
Education
Speaker: Petra Becker (Back on Track e.V.)
NGOs & Think Tanks
Speakers: Arnisa Tepelija and Nino Tsereteli (both Democracy Reporting International)
11:45-12:00 | Wrap-up discussion
12:00-13:00 | Light lunch
Short biographies:
Anne Schreiter is Executive Director of Guidance, Skills & Opportunities for Researchers e.V. (GSO), an independent non-profit organization based in Berlin that supports researchers at critical career transitions. Before joining GSO, she developed cross-sectoral leadership programs at Common Purpose. She holds a PhD in organizational sociology from the University of St. Gallen and spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. She also serves on advisory boards of the German Postdoc Network and the Network for Research Management.
Enrico De Angelis holds a PhD in Political Communication on Syrian journalism. He did a post-doc at Cedej, Cairo, between 2012 and 2014 analysing the networked public sphere in Egypt. He is one of the co-founders of the Syrian media platform UntoldStories and co-founder of the Italian version of Orient XXI. He currently works as a media researcher consultant for organizations such as Free Press Unlimited, UNESCO, International Media Support, Hivos, Deutsche Welle, and Canal France International. He has held teaching positions at the American University of Cairo, Roberto Ruffilli Faculty and the Political Science Faculty at University of Bologna. He published a monograph on media and conflict and several articles on media in the MENA region. He has lived in Berlin since October 2016.
Petra Becker studied Islamic Studies, Political Science and Sociology at the University of Münster, and as part of her studies also spent two years at the Arabic Teaching Institute for Foreigners in Damascus. She is also a certified translator and worked as a freelance translator in Berlin. From 2002 to 2012, she was Head of the Language Service at the German Embassy in Damascus, and from 2012 to 2016, a research fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). In 2016, she founded the association “Back on Track e.V.”, of which she has been the managing director since 2018, and has since been committed to the education of refugee children in Berlin and Syria.
Kateryna Mishchenko is a writer, curator, translator and publisher. She studied German philology, English and world literature at the National Linguistic University of Kyiv, where she also worked as a lecturer. She subsequently worked as a translator, including of literary and cultural theory texts, and was a co-founder of the journal of literature, art and social criticism Prostory. Since 2014, she has been an editor at the independent publishing house Medusa. She curates events at the intersection of art and politics and writes essays. She now lives in Berlin, where she was a Fellow of the Prisma Ukraїna program at the Forum Transregionale Studien in 2018/19 and a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin 2022-24. She currently works at the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung).
Arnisa Tepelija is Rule of Law Research Officer at Democracy Reporting International in Berlin. She holds a PhD in Comparative Constitutional Law from Central European University in Vienna. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Law from the University of Tirana, and an MA degree in Advanced European and International Studies from Centre International de Formation Européenne (CIFE) in Nice, Berlin and Rome. She is an expert, researcher and author of many papers related to the rule of law, judicial studies, anti-corruption and EU Integration and has been engaged as consultant and advisor to international organizations and governments on these matters.
Nino Tsereteli is a Programme Coordinator at Democracy Reporting International (DRI), leading Starlight 2.0, a capacity-building programme for legal professionals. Prior to this, she served as a Research Officer with the re:constitution programme, implemented by Forum Transregionale Studien and DRI, from 2021. Before joining DRI, Nino held research positions at the Judicial Studies Institute at Masaryk University (Czechia) and the University of Oslo (Norway), where she obtained her doctorate.
We kindly ask for prior registration until 15 June 2026 via eume(at)trafo-berlin.de.
