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The first UBS Center Scholarship recipient
grants us a glimpse of his ride on the PhD
roller coaster.
Jean-Michel Benkert joined the UBS Center in
2012 as a PhD student at the Department of Eco-
nomics. He was the first student to receive a UBS
Center Scholarship for the Zurich Graduate School
of Economics. At the time of this interview, Jean-
Michel Benkert was a visiting student at North-
western University, Illinois.
Four years have passed since you were awarded the
UBS Center Scholarship. When you look back
now, what were your personal highlights?
Jean-Michel Benkert:
Well I guess right now is one
of the highlights. The opportunity to visit North-
western University is amazing, as it is one of the
best departments in the world; experiencing that is
certainly a personal highlight. More Zurich spe-
cific, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, which I
was able to attend in 2014 along with the other
UBS Center Scholarship holders, was impressive in
terms of witnessing the Nobel laureates and also
being able to talk to them and interact with them
during dinner. Finally, more generally speaking, the
experience of interacting with the visiting scholars
in Zurich. When you have speakers over, this is
something I appreciate a lot and it is always a high-
light of the week and as such one of the highlights
overall.
What were the main challenges that you faced
during the past years and how did you master
them?
W
hat I was told and what I tell all the prospective
or young students is that course work is relatively
easy; it is hard work but it is a familiar setting. The
hard part is the transition to research. Course work
is just like what you had before, but doing research
is just a new situation. The challenge here is to get
good at self-management. I managed to get better at
this by talking to the people who are more experi-
enced, especially by speaking to my mentor and
advisor. Every day in some sense is a challenge just
by the virtue of doing research. You don’t know if a
project is going to work out, so you have to try and
work hard on it. And certainly one of the hardest
moments was when I had to let go of a project that
didn’t lead anywhere for the first time. And the
challenge that I’m now facing is to come up with
something that is good enough for a job market
paper. As you said it’s been four years, I’m closer to
the end than to the beginning and now it’s about
trying to position myself on the academic market
and that currently feels like the biggest challenge so
far.
You were the first UBS Center Scholarship holder
and started in 2012 shortly after the creation of the
center. Have you benefitted from having a UBS
Center Scholarship?
That’s an easy question to answer. Yes, I have
benefitted tremendously. The most obvious advan-
tage is that I have the option to teach classes while
not having any obligations. The scholarship gives
me the opportunity to dedicate myself fully to my
research and course work. Also, what I really enjoy
is that I am invited to all the UBS Center events. It
is a great opportunity to interact with people, with
whom I wouldn’t usually interact. For instance, I
sat next to Peter Gottwald, the former German
ambassador in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, at the
dinner that followed the public lecture by Kenneth
Rogoff in June 2015. Talking with him was incred-
ibly interesting. That is a conversation I would have
probably never have had and probably never will
have again.
What is your assessment on the build-up and the
activities of the center?
From the beginning, the center has been very suc-
cessful at hosting outstanding public events, like the
Forum. Recently, the center started hosting aca-
demic conferences with first-class speakers, and it
“I started a PhD with the idea
of pursuing an academic career
and the last four years rein-
forced my belief that being a
researcher is an attractive job.
The combination of teaching
and research is very appealing.”
Scholarships
Interview