PhD student - PhD Student Agroscope Employee Review

Freedom and resources to pursue research ideas Great network of experts on many topics willing to give advice Feedback on projects is often critical but constructive and fair

Went through several reorganizations during my time there. This sometimes made it hard to keep up with who was in charge and the correct procedures to follow. There seemed to be a separation between the temporary (often non-Swiss) PhD students/postdocs and the full-time (often Swiss) long-term employees like technicians or senior scientists. Language and cultural differences can sometimes make it a lonely place The research of different groups sometimes overlaps, which caused some tension and a sense of competition between different groups

- I was able to learn many essential skills, because Agroscope has a large number of long-time employees with a high degree of expertise and experience in their field. - Great coworkers and management. Very collaborative atmosphere. - Great quality of the project and results. - Very organized, company works with schedules and is generally very self-critical (at least the employees). - I had a lot of responsibility for a doctoral student (reporting, supervising other students, etc.) as compared to other institutions.

- Office culture was sometimes difficult, some unsatisfied employees tend to belittle the results of others. - You will have to deal with people that are not open to new ideas. - You will have to deal with relatively small budgets.