Post-doc'ing for Success - Early Career Researchers Workshop
Description of the workshop
This workshop aimed to help VALIDATE Early Career Researchers (Associate and post-graduate student Affiliate members) widen and improve the non-technical skills necessary to progress their careers. This small, informal workshop provided an opportunity to get to know fellow VALIDATE post-docs and post-graduate researchers from around the world. The workshop was run as part of the VALIDATE Network 2018 Annual Meeting.
Agenda
More details were posted as they were confirmed, but the preliminary agenda was as follows:
09:30 Welcome and introductions – Samantha Vermaak, VALIDATE Network Manager
10:00 Managing yourself for success – Samantha Vermaak, VALIDATE Network Manager/Business and Personal Coach
As a Business and Personal Coach, Sam talked about how to make the most of your career, be successful – and feel fulfilled and enjoy life while doing so. She discussed the fears and limiting beliefs that can hold us back, how to take charge of your career, and how to make the most of yourself and have a successful and satisfying career.
10:45 Coffee/tea break
11:15 How to win funds and influence panels – Dr Martin Broadstock, Programme Manager for Immunology, MRC
Martin’s talk gave guidance on how to develop a grant idea, together with hints and tips on what funders look for in a grant application, why grant applications fail and how to maximise the chances of an application receiving funding.
12:00 Exploring Leadership as Ethical Practice: The Role of Imagination and Wonder – Prof Max Stephenson Jr, Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Policy and Governance, Virginia Tech
This talk examined the apparent contradictions between Westerners’ cultural willingness to demand that leaders “take charge” and their simultaneous assumption that great leaders shape historical events, and the fact that leadership scholars have argued that leaders do not alone commonly determine outcomes in the contexts in which they work.
It also considered the paradox that most leadership scholars call on leaders to behave with humility, trustworthiness and selflessness, while many in practice behave in exactly the opposite ways and are often popularly rewarded for doing so. The talk argued that ethical leadership is shaped by specific attributes and that these must be enlivened by imagination, empathy and wonder to maximise the potential for the emergence of shared purpose and individual personal and professional growth.
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Career planning for success – panel talks and Q&A
Associate Prof Helen Fletcher, Director, TB Centre, LSHTM
Assistant Prof Narisara Chantratita, Mahidol University
Dr Bernardo Villarreal-Ramos, Senior Research Scientist, APHA
Dr Martin Broadstock, Programme Manager for Immunology, MRC
Senior members of VALIDATE from different stages of the postdoctoral career trajectory gave short talks about their careers and shared tips and advice for our ECRs. They then answered questions from the audience about having a successful career in science.
15:00 Impressing your peers: asking intelligent questions at conferences and seminars – Dr Rebecca Powell Doherty, University of Oxford
Rebecca discussed tips and techniques for maintaining confidence and formulating questions in an intimidating conference environment.
15:15 Coffee/tea break
15:45 Turbo talk presentations from selected ECRs to build collaborations and practise asking questions
Dr Olayinka Osuolale, Dr Amanda Gibson, Dr Rachel Tanner, Dr Jomien Mouton, Dr Eduardo Milton Ramos Sanchez, Francis Nongley
This session gave our Early Career Researchers the opportunity to practise giving a talk and asking questions in a safe environment with their peers, while also facilitating networking and helping to build collaborations. The short talks focused on each member’s VALIDATE-related research, with plenty of time for questions after each talk.
17:00 End of day
18:00 Optional group dinner
What our ECRs said about our 2018 "Post-doc'ing for Success" workshop:
"The ECR workshop was excellent"
"[the careers panel] was a great session. I loved how truthful everyone was"
"10/10. It was useful to get to know other ECRs, share our experiences and ideas"
[re the careers panel] "It was good to know that other researchers go through similar challenges and manage to succeed"
"All topics in the workshop were helpful for my career advancement. I love all of them"
To read about our 1st ECR "Post-doc'ing for Success" workshop, you can read the agenda here and the report here.
