Dear all,I really need help...

Hi Francesco,

EMBL offered to support similar seminars to our recent one in Heidelberg at their campuses in France, UK and Italy. Both UK and French chapters don't feel they are yet capable of organising such events. Both countries have huge potential for MCAA. The UK chapter grew from about 30 to almost 200 members in the last week. E&N could help these chapters to deal with something like this. The Italian chapter feels capable of handling an event like this.

Also, I am planning to apply for 100k€ German funding for an "International Research Marketing" event. MCAA cannot be the main partner but EMBL Heidelberg are the best German partner I can imagine. I will make a long list of speakers/organisations/companies to invite to take part. Our BSB, Gender Equality, Communication or Policy WGs could organise sessions. The E&N WG could definitely play a role. EMBL and its Alumni program will also be a major part of the organisation. I will produce the first draft of the proposal and let EMBL modify it from there. EMBL must be the main organisers and control the funding.

Marco Masia will be in Heidelberg during the next week and talk with EMBL about these points.

The Irish NCP Jennifer Brennan is interested in supporting the launch of an Irish Chapter.

Warm regards, Brian

Dear Francesco,

Thank you for your message.

I beleive in the new session (since more money is coming), E&N working group should not only focus on establishing new Chapters but also organize networking activities in already established Chapters (or Ghost Chapters) who are not so active to support them. There are many Chapters (old or new) that are facing problems for several reasons (1. they are unclear what kind of activities they can organize, they don't have enough active members, the funding is not so much, the Chair is busy and not so active etc etc...). 

Secondly, you may also broaden area and think to organize events outside Europe to foster releationship of MCAA Chapters With Euraxess-Links. I beleive E&N WG is a group of fellows with both European and non-european nationalities which can help you in organizing such events. Euraxess is main strategic partner of MCAA outside Europe for providing information regarding various funding programs and usually organize great networking events (2 or 3 times in a year). Such events has been recently organized in India, China, ASEAN and California, North-America. It will be great opportunity for MCAA to be present in these events and E&N may be most apt group to take part in organization.

Thirdly, it has been noticed that there are different working groups organizing similar activites and co-operate with each other to provide travel grants to fellows. You can clearly mention these kind of travel grants in your new funding application for co-operation with other working groups.

Fourth, We may organize MCAA TEDx-Like event. MCAA has already collaboration with TEDx Organization in Italy and we can take their experience and support to organize such event (may be together with next GA).

Fifth, E&N WG should reform a new Board team for E&N WG and every decision has to be passed by whole Board (for acceptance or rejection of any proposal by voting) and not only by one person. We should be more open to our group members for fair outcome. The new Chair has been recently selected but no elections has been organized for the position of vice chair or other activity co-ordinator of the WG.

We may discuss in more details when you reform the new group based on fellows responses after your deadline of 6 June.

Cheers

Shikhar

Hi,

I agree with both Brian and Shikhar. Just to add:

1. E&N can organize co-funded events in different countries. Brian already set a good example how to do that in Germany. As Shikhar pointed out, WG E&N can co-organize events with chapters as well as other professional and European organizations such as EuroScience, IEEE etc.

2.  E&N can help co-organizing European Researcher's night.

3. I personally liked the TEDx idea of Shikhar. As MCAA members come from different discipline, it would be an ideal event for everyone. And Also, I support the idea of forming new board for E&N

Best Regards,

Mostafa

Dear all, 

thanks for your suggestions.

I also received the suggestions provided by Angela Bellia, Andrea Viti, Giovanna Muggiolu, and Maria Dolores Grillo. 

Below, you can find a few comments on the proposed activities.

- Concerning the idea of strengthening the (ghost) chapters. I do not disagree with the idea but if the WG is going to interfere with the chapters, it is not really clear to me the sense of having a chapter is. There was the other WG on the management of WG which has never done anything on the real management and monitoring. 

- Regarding the activities with external countries, I am absolutely in favour. We have been already in contact with Euraxess China and we aim at including other areas.

- The collaboration with wg and other chapters has always been a challenge. Again, the management WG was supposed to do that but it simply did not work. 

- At the beginning of the existance of the E&N WG, I proposed to create a board and I was told it was not possible because the statute does not allow it. That is why it does not officially exist. However, last year some people have been appointed for the collaboration and with them the activities have been planned. For instance Andrea Viti has always done the vice chair, while Giovanna Muggiolu kept track of the financial part.

- A very good idea introduced by Angela Bellia is to organize in the strongest chapters institutional events with representative of the local government. This would allow a greater visibility to the MC grants, as well as to raise some problems directly with the right people. 

Overall, I have the impression that the structure of MCAA is getting very confusing. The task of each WG should be precisely assigned. The initial idea was to support networking events and to give full independence to chapters. I believe it is not (fully) normal to support the activities of a chapter, once it has been created and financed, at least not by E&N WG. Anyway, with the people who participated for making the plan, I will set a skype meeting and we can talk about it.

Regards,

Francesco

Dear All,

This is an old thread but the topic fits.

Barbara Janssens is the career advisor at the Genrman Cancer research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg and is the joint head of Career Advisors for Researchers in Europe (CARE). She organised a well-received careers session at ESOF last summer. Barbara invited MCAA to jointly organize a Career Workshop/Seminar in Heidelberg on October 20th 2017. Barbara will form a boot camp for a team of volunteers to help organize this event. Does anyone from Events and Networking want to help out?

Warm regards,

Brian