I. Members

II. General Rules for PAC Meetings:

The WBK regulates the PAC activities. Two (!) PAC meetings must be scheduled during a PhD. 

The first meeting has to be scheduled at the end of the first year. Its purpose is to evaluate how the PhD student adjusted to the working and social atmosphere at MPIA and in his/her group and whether the original goals of the PhD thesis can still be achieved. 

At the begin of the third year another PAC meeting is due which evaluates the progress and timely completion of the PhD. During this meeting the future plans of the student, her/his international visibility (e.g. through publications and talks/posters at workshops or collaborations with other research groups) and her/his chances for a career in astronomy should also be discussed. 

If this meeting would be used to evaluate the extension of the contract students would loose the trust in the PAC as it would begin to mainly evaluate their PhD work instead of serving as a guidance and help. Therefore it was decided that the evaluation of the extension should not be influenced by the PAC report which can be best achieved if the second PAC meeting is scheduled AFTER the extension, i.e. 10 months before the end of the 3rd year.

In order to organize these meetings more efficiently the PAC has defined the following rules:

1 The PhD students and their advisors are themselves responsible for arranging meetings with the PAC.

2. The PAC will announce the days where meetings can be scheduled. In addition PAC meetings can be requested by the students at any time.

3. If you want to request a PAC meeting, please make sure that both the advisor and student will be available during this day. Then contact the chair of the PAC (currently Hubert Klahr) and tell him when a PAC meeting would fit into your schedule. The chair will let you know whether a slot is available for these days. Note: the more flexible you are, the easier it is to find a slot. 

4. If we have agreed on the dates, the student (!) should prepare a short (2 pages) report which should be sent to the PAC, not later than a week before the meetingand which shortly summarizes the topic of the PhD, the progress that has been made, any problems that have come up, complete publication list, plus planned papers, conferences that have been attended or will be attended and any internal as well as external collaborations. A timeline for the remaining time of the "PhD-student phase" has also shown to be very helpful. At the second PAC meeting we also request an outline of the PhD thesis. We also prepared a short template:

PAC-example_eng.pdf

PAC-example_eng.doc

5. A PAC meeting typically lasts 1.5 hour. 

Students with more than one advisor should only have their day-to-day advisor present at the PAC meeting,

unless the presence of the other advisors is necessary for technical reasons.

It starts with a short 20 minutes presentation (again: slides for 20 min. !!!)(view graphs or power point presentation) of the student about the work that has been done so far and its motivation and goals. This presentation will be the basis for an open discussion about the students work, which can last up to 1 hour. The advisor is kindly asked to let mainly the student speak in this period.

A discussion of the status with the student and advisor follows and finally, the PAC will talk with the student without the advisor and also, if requested, with the advisor without the student. Finally a report will be written at the end of the PAC meeting which is sent to the student, the advisor and the directors. The content of the report is confidential and should not be made available to third parties, unless all participants of the PAC meeting agree to do so. Confidential information brought to the PAC by the student is automatically excluded from the PAC-report upon the students request.

6. Please note that you are always welcomed to request a special PAC meeting or simply contact the PAC if some problems (e.g. with your thesis or even with your advisor) have come up and you need advise or help!