Bosch Alumni Network - Driving Change

“Together We Laid the Foundation
for Something Beautiful”
Female scientists in the fast lane: “Fast Track” alumna Konstantina
Papathanasiou explains how an alumni network can help bring more
female scientists into management positions.
Nina Linkel
Photo: Anita Back
Konstantina Papathanasiou
is an alumna of the “Fast Track”
program. She is a senior lecturer
on criminal justice and
a postdoctoral scholar in the
scope of the 2nd program for
female professors organized
by the Federal Ministry for
Education and Research at the
University of Regensburg as
well as a lecturer of German
criminal law at the Faculté
Libre de Droit in Paris.
Konstantina, as a scientist in criminal
law, you are a woman in a maledominated
field. How important are
networks for a scientific career?
Very important! Competence and quality
are certainly necessary requirements.
Besides that, one must also develop a
reputation for one’s own good work.
In order to reach top positions, networks
play a decisive role — they promote cooperation
as well as an exchange of knowledge.
However, networks shouldn’t be confused
with “good contacts.” Those are effective
on their own — without competence or
quality. I personally reject that.
“Fast Track” was a program for
female scientists aspiring to management
positions. How important is
the aspect that your alumni group
is exclusively female?
Thanks to the program, we have taken
part in first-rate seminars on negotiating
or the right way to handle crisis situations.
It‘s these collective experiences which
bring the alumni closer together and provide
a basis of trust for the future. In this
respect we want our alumni group to
remain exclusively female.
The “Fast Track” alumni meeting took
place in Bad Saarow from June 7 to 9.
What was the gathering all about?
On the one hand, the aim of the gathering
was an exchange between alumni from different
program cycles. Up until this point
every alumna only knew colleagues from
her own program cycle. On the other hand,
we were also given the opportunity to
dis cuss a collective vision. In doing so,
we considered what we need as a group,
what binds us and what we imagine for
the future.
What was your role in this process?
Together with other alumni, I took part in
both preliminary meetings: in Stuttgart in
May 2017 and in Berlin in October 2018.
I feel deeply connected to the “Fast Track”
program because it helped me to improve
my leadership abilities. That‘s why I want
to help shape our alumni work. And that
is also the reason I gave a speech on the
future of our subnetwork at our gathering
in Bad Saarow.
Alumni meeting
Nearly 100 former fellows from all
11 “Fast Track” program years came
together on a weekend in June 2018
in Bad Saarow to promote networking
across program cycles and determine
a common identity. As the first alumni
group in the science field within the
Bosch Alumni Network, they developed
collective visions and aims for
their subnetwork.
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