The kick-off event took place on Monday, 5 June 2023, in room H3005 in the Main Building of Technische Universität Berlin. Many of the tenure-track professors attending had only recently taken up their positions. BUA spokesperson and president of Technische Universität Berlin, Professor Geraldine Rauch, opened the event, praising the Berlin University Alliance as a space to forge a career and presenting the peer mentoring offer for tenure-track professors as an example of the advantages created by the Alliance.

Coffee, finger food, and bar tables provided the ideal environment for people to meet and get into conversation. Parallel to this, three topic islands were set up to ensure structured input. At the "Mentoring – From Peer to Peer" island, our mentoring expert, Carmen Kurbjuhn, moderated the matching of the first peer mentoring groups. A total of five groups were set up, which we continued to support over the following weeks. At the "Let's Talk About Being Evaluated" island, a current and a former tenure track professor shared their impressions of their interim and tenure evaluations. The number of people attending and the many questions asked revealed how much support tenure-track professorships still required. Advice and support for tenure-track professors with children and/or caring responsibilities were available at the "Let's Talk About Family and Professorship" island, which was organized by the universities' family services offices. Topics and suggestions for the next networking event were collected using an anonymous online questionnaire.

Check out our photo gallery.