2016 has been a busy year for the Early Career Researcher Network (ECRN) in CEMPS, we have run a number of events with the aim of building a supportive community for early career researchers across the college, helping researchers to get to know other researchers outside their research group.
In June the ECRN had a “relaunch” event where we highlighted what the aims of the ECRN were and what support was available. This included a lunch, talks from the heads of discipline, a poster session and the opportunity for people to give a 60s elevator pitch on their research. Prizes were awarded for the best elevator pitch and posters, and we encouraged everyone to think about what makes a great poster by introducing a peer marking scheme for the posters.
“ECRs networking during the poster session at the relaunch event”
We have also run specific workshops for early career researchers. In April we ran a promotions workshop for postdoctoral researchers with advice from both HR and academics on what the promotions process involves and what you can do to maximise your chances of success. On the 25th October we ran a finding funding workshop with advice from Dr Debbie Marsden on the college support available for grant applications and an opportunity to build a data base of suitable opportunities for early career researchers.
Finally, on the 8th of December the ECRN held a Christmas social with festive food and activities. One of the activities was for people to write an abstract describing their research using only the 1000 most common words in the English language, prizes were awarded for the best abstracts and everyone had the challenge of matching them to their scientific titles.
“Crackers, hats and science fun at the Christmas social”
“Well done to all the winners of the ECRN competitions this year.”
We would like to say thank-you to the research led initiative (RLI) award and funding from the college for making these events possible and we are looking forward to running many more events in 2017.
Best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
CEMPS ECRN