All magazines from February 2016
Waiting for the new Board – Interview with Roy Someshwar, MCAA Treasurer Waiting for the new Board – Interview with Snežana Krstić, MCAA Chair Waiting for the new Board – Interview with Axelle Viré, MCAA Vice-Chair Waiting for the new Board – Interview with Kiran Kumar Chereddy, MCAA Ordinary Board Member
Load More

The MCAA has become observer of the Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE)

Doctor Masia, you’re the Chair of the Policy on Successful Researchers Working Group. Could you tell us about the group's recent activities?

The group has been working on many different activities, most of them intended to prepare position papers or suggestions for the Commission. In particular, we are preparing three documents to address issues often overlooked in Marie Curie Actions, such as Fellows’ relations with Host Institutions and the Principal investigator, issues related to gender and work-life balance, and the implementation of career development and outreach activities.

In addition, we have recently conducted a poll among our members to understand how familiar they are with Research Integrity. The results suggest that many Fellows have witnessed research misconduct and that they feel training is needed. Therefore, in the long term, we aim to introduce European Commission Research Integrity courses for future MSC Fellows. In the short term, we would like to contract an external company to provide the courses.

The policy group already has experience of external partnerships. For example, the Nature Publishing Group and Elsevier are currently providing discounts to our members after a brief negotiation led by our group. These kinds of partnerships were suggested in one of the first policy documents that we produced last year.

Finally, we are organising a webinar on pressing policy issues for European Researchers. It will be moderated by a highly respected journalist who will interview representatives of different stakeholders, from the Commission to the institutes, and to the researchers.

How many members do you have and how many are your targeting?

Currently we have 23 members but we are going to reorganise the membership as many are no longer active and we are receiving a large number of applications. In fact, we need to streamline our operations to deliver better, and possibly more, results. In my experience, 23 is too a high number and I would prefer to limit the number to 10. Ten active members work much more efficiently than many unmotivated people! We are anyways open to proposals from outside the WG that target issues relevant for our Alumni. So, any feedback from Alumni outside the WG is more than welcome!

The Initiative for Science in Europe (ISE) is an independent platform of European learned societies and scientific organisations. The Working Group has become an observer. What led to this?

Membership comprises important bodies such as the EMBO and the European Physical Society to cite just a few. More or less a year ago, the ISE invited our association to participate in their General Assembly. It was then that our board suggested joining hte ISE as external members and I am currently the representative for the MCAA.

What will be the role of the Working Group as an Observer?

Being observer members, we are not taking part in the decision-making process. Nonetheless, we are actively involved in their activities. In particular, we are currently part of the working group on Scientific Advice in Europe. The aim of this WG is to organise a workshop that will include up to 20 experts representing the views of practitioners, analysts and academics on the topic. The workshop will be held under Chatham House Rules. A report of the findings will presented at appropriate policy-making and academic forums.

Does the MCAA have the option of becoming a member of this organisation in the future?

I hope so! The observer status expires after 12 months; then we have to decide whether to be members and pay the relative fee, or not. I think that the Association would benefit a lot from being a member of the ISE in terms of visibility, and in terms of connections with other excellent organisations in Europe. This decision will be taken by the new board of the Association next summer.

Would you like to share information on any of the Working Group's other
initiatives?

We are still in the phase of planning another initiative to start a sort of “mentoring mechanism” among Fellows within the Association, whereby senior Alumni advise juniors on career choices. At the moment I don’t have more details as we still have to work on the idea; hopefully, the mechanism will be proposed by the summer 2016 and implemented shortly after.

REGISTER