VDS-P Summer school 2018 "Career Development for Early Stage Researchers"
As part of the first VDS-P Summer school 2018 on Career Development for Early Stage Researchers, which took place in July 2018, several soft skill workshops took place, among them:
- Negotiation skills by Robert Marshall
- Scientific presentation techniques by Martin Buxbaum
- European grant proposal writing - Learning from successful applications by Therese Lindahl
- Create your own science animation
The VDS-P welcomed 60 PhD students and early postdocs from universities and research institutions in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK to the first edition of the VDS-P Summer School. The event provided a platform for exchange between early stage researchers in Physics and related disciplines and experts from inside and outside academia. Each day focused on a different topic related to career development and participants received training in key skills for an academic career as well as insights into opportunities for graduates in complementary sectors.
Day 1. Academia Today:
Trends in the academic sector & academic career development
The first day of the VDS-P Summer School focused on the analysis of academia as a career choice. The day was based on an intertwining of plenary talks dealing with the topics of freedom of research in academia (Maximilian Fochler, University of Vienna) and the gender bias in science (Tomas Brage, Lund University) and workshops giving insights into scientific presentation techniques (Martin Buxbaum, UAS bfi Vienna) and academic leadership (Tobias Maier, hfp consulting). In the panel discussion the invited guest speakers Tomas Brage and Maximilian Fochler discussed together with Sofia Kantorovich (University of Vienna), Toma Susi (University of Vienna) and Gregor Weihs (University of Innsbruck and Austrian Science Fund FWF) about academia as a career choice.
This variety of formats aimed at alternating the learning of useful concepts for the realization of an incisive academic career with an active debate on the meaning of the nowadays academic landscape and academic research.
Day 2. Research grant proposals:
Evaluation criteria & tips for writing
The second day of the VDS-P Summer School provided guidance on how to approach proposal writing with a particular focus on the funding schemes of “Horizon 2020”, the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme until today with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020). Yasmin Dolak-Struss (FFG) introduced the participants to the Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships covering the process of preparing and submitting a research grant application. Evaluation criteria and tips for the structural were presented in the plenary before learning from successful applications in small teams in the workshops. In the afternoon Nicole Schmidt (FFG) presented the COST framework as an example of a funding scheme providing the means to set up interdisciplinary networks in Europe and beyond.
In the evening the participants and speakers of the VDS-P Summer School were invited to the conference dinner at a typical Viennese restaurant.
Day 3. From academia to the private sector:
Identifying strengths & skills trends for the private sector
The third day of the VDS-P Summer School focused on the transition from an academic environment to the private sector. The first speaker of the day, Sabine Stock, Partner & Managing Director at the Boston Consulting Group, illustrated which skills are required in the consulting sector and in which way a scientific background makes students valuable candidates also for jobs outside Academia. The plenary was followed by a workshop given by Christoph Feichtenschlager, Managing Partner at JDI, who gave the participants of the summer school tips on introducing oneself to the private sector e.g. how to present oneself in a job interview and how to shape and structure the curriculum vitae.
In the afternoon, Michele Sclafani, co-founder of Aloop Visual Studio in Barcelona, gave a workshop on how to translate your research in a science animation.
As the social activity of the summer school the participants applied the learned skills and formed small teams to create storylines and sketches as the basis for potential science animations.
A jury of young scientists and science communication experts screened the competing entries. The winning team will have their animation script realized by the Aloop Animation Studio.
Congratulations to the winning team:
"Self-Assembly of Fish" (De Llano, Elisa - AIT, Ventura Rosales, Ivonne - Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna and Kriegesmann, Julia - Institute for Biological Chemistry, University of Vienna)
Runner-Ups:
"The hidden Universe" (Augustin, Ramona - European Southern Observatory / Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille and Varga, Tamas - Ludwig Maximilian University Munich)
"The big bed theory - Seeing the world as a child: Demolishing prejudices to get to the foundations" (Magrini, Lorenzo - University of Vienna and Cardelli, Chiara - University of Vienna)
"The painter leopard" (Amabile, Roberto - Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
Day 4. Opportunities outside academia:
The job market in the private sector, NGOs and beyond.
Thursday started with individual introductions to professions outside the academic sector covering examples from NGOs, the industrial and the consultancy sector. A variety of speakers talked about the companies they work for, how they experienced the transition from academia to a complementary work environment and why they consider their own career paths to be interesting: Joseph Niemela (ICTP Trieste), Barbara Capone (University of Roma Tre and Science4People), Mathias Tomandl (IMS Nanofabrication GmbH), Claudia Keller (Infineon Technologies AG Munich) and Michel Herquet (B12 Consulting).
These case studies were followed by a panel discussion, providing all speakers with a platform to answer questions from the audience and discuss challenges and concerns inside and outside the academic world.
The day found its conclusion in an excursion to the United Nations Office Vienna, where the participants received a guided tour through the premises and attended two lectures on job opportunities for scientists at the IAEA and the CTBTO.
Day 5. Start-Ups:
First-hand expertise from specialists and successful founders.
The last day of the summer school was all about startups and entrepreneurship. In two case studies Tiffany Wood (Edinburgh Complex Fluids partnership) and Oliver Heckl (Christian Doppler Lab for Mid-IR spectroscopy and semiconductor optics, University of Vienna) presented alternative ways of how to transfer research ideas towards commercial solutions. Furthermore, in a series of short talks, various aspects of how to found a start-up from protecting your ideas and funding a start-up to building your team were discussed by Robert Harrison (24 IP Law Group), Bernhard Ungerböck and Karl Biedermann (aws), Michel Herquet (B12 Consulting) and Markus Pietzka (INiTS).
In the afternoon all of Friday’s speakers participated in a world café where they were answering questions from the participants in an informal setting.
In parallel, Robert Marshall (Robert Marshall & Associates) held a workshop on ‘Understanding Negotiation’.
We once more thank the VDS-P fellows - Stefan Kuhn, Maximilian Liebetreu, Francesca Nerrattini, Giulia Rubino and Valeria Saggio - who organized the first VDS-P Summer School and all the speakers and participants for their valuable input!
Soft Skill Workshops in Photography
In 2017 and 2018, workshops were held by Dr. Oleg Domanov about photography for science publication and dissemination. We learned about how to create and edit visualisations to adapt for various audiences and purposes, among them the inclusion in science publications such as articles in referred journals, theses etc., and in dissemination activities such as outreach events, social media entries etc.
Interactive Science Communication
In June 2017 the Science Center Netzwerk gave a two days workshop about interactive science communication. We had the opportunity to:
- get to know, deepen and reflect concepts of interactive science communication: Why – what for – how?
- try out practical methods: experiments, games, tinkering
- find out about various objectives of science communication: how to spark curiosity, inquiry-based learning, ....
- learn about science communication and social inclusion: working with diverse target groups, particularly migrants, refugees – in view of age, gender, education, social and cultural backgrounds, language
- get an insight into good practice examples of interactive science communication