The journalist Teresa Arrieta talking to Dr Annelie-Martina Weinberg, head of the Laura Bassi Centre.

What, in your opinion, is the added value of the Laura Bassi Centres compared to other research programmes?

It has been my life’s dream to develop implants that dissolve in the body. Thanks to the Laura Bassi Programme I can make this dream come true. I was looking for people to invest in my research for a long time. But only the Laura Bassi Centre of Excellence secures long-term financing of my objectives. The way I am able to work now means that there is a real chance for progress. Up to now, the industry only offered me insignificant sums since children represent too insignificant a market. But this attitude is in the process of changing.

How do you assess the new research culture of the Laura Bassi Centres oriented towards future management?

It wasn’t difficult for me to meet these demands because I have just completed an MBA course in Health Management. It helped me expand my knowledge on topics like career management, staff appraisals and personnel development. In Medical Studies you don’t learn anything of the sort.

Career management of female staff in particular is an important part of the Laura Bassi Programme. In what way are you planning to support your female staff?

Even when I took over the Laura Bassi Centre it was a concern of mine to invest in young researchers, so I follow quite the same line as the programme. I have, for example, left some scientific awards to younger colleagues. And in the publications, too, my name comes last most of the time. I believe that the generation to come deserves our fullest support. Promotion and motivation – that is my motto. We owe some research awards exclusively to the contribution of students. Scientists trained under me will be successful later in life.

Which concrete measures regarding career management will you take?

The members of my team will complete various soft-skill training courses. Rhetoric, body language and self-presentation are particularly important in surgery, because men communicate differently, and women never learned this language before. From kindergarten onwards we are usually taken care of by female attachment figures. We are not familiar with direct, aggressive communication which is characteristic of most men. Women don’t like to say: “I am and I want”, they don’t probe. But we should join in the men’s chats at the coffee machine. The negotiation and presentation courses will therefore be obligatory for all Laura Bassi staff.

You have presented a comprehensively planned and well-thought-out management concept for your Laura Bassi Centre.

I draw up a career plan and a target agreement with all my staff: the women have to continually broaden their skills and further enhance their qualifications. Not only with regard to soft skills, but also to medical knowledge. So far, I have received very positive feedback from my team for this approach. I was told: “For the first time someone clearly states which criteria have to be fulfilled and how this is supposed to work.” At first, nobody understood why I wanted that, but now everybody sees the advantages of precise and transparent planning. The Laura Bassi Programme provides an adequate framework for establishing an innovative, highly professional procedure, and it’s about time this happened in operative research.

Transparency is an important keyword in the Laura Bassi Centres.

Transparency is very important to me. In surgery it mostly remains unclear who may operate when und who may do what, because this is the conventional way to rule: “I am the only one who knows everything, nobody is supposed to be as clever as I am or, even worse, become better.” The strategy is to rule by means of non-transparency. In contrast, I endeavour to disclose what I expect, what’s in store for us and what we want to achieve. Such aggressive communication is also meant to reflect on my role as leader.

The concept of your Laura Bassi Centre includes for the whole team a demanding and continuous further development both personally and with regard to their specialist field.

I will hold special modules on the latest surgical techniques. The surgical profession presents a twofold challenge: on the one hand, it is necessary to improve technically, on the other, research has to progress as well. The Laura Bassi Centre is to provide a strong stimulus for the further development of a female surgeon’s job outline. Structures must be created to reconcile basic research and further techn(olog)ical development.

Has heading the Laura Bassi Centre so far had any effect on you personal career

You cannot get past me any longer. I am considered a competent partner even more seriously than before, new doors are opening up: because of the Laura Bassi Centre of Excellence I was also offered a Marie Curie EU project (note: EU Framework Programme for Research promoting young scientists), which I hope will be approved. I want to use the Laura Bassi Centre as a tool to empower female surgeons in cooperative science, to establish further cooperation with the industry and to implement a new surgical model: the ball is about to be set rolling.

Interview: Teresa Arrieta