Pradeep Eranti
Fernanda Bajanca
Pradeep Eranti
Lidia Natalia Trusilewicz
MCAA elections and more
Some time ago I posted this question in the MCFA FB group: "what is the difference between the MCFA and the MCAA?", not any reply.
Now I try to ask it here again, what is the difference between MCFA and MCAA?
What is the need of having a new association of MC if there is already one?
In a previous discussion Panopoulos wrote the MCAA has been created "to support ALL Marie Curie Alumni", what does this mean? MCFA is not doing it (I mean ALL)?
I see that almost all the MCFA board is candidated to the MCAA elections and they are all present to the GA. They are already a group (probably strong) within
many other people not knowing each other (except 300 characters for describing themsleves and their motivations ...), so why not directly migrating all the MCFA board to the MCAA board? How can I vote for someone that I do not know or I have never met? I suggest all the candidates (for all the positions) to post here what they think, what idea they have about the MCAA, what they would like to do and how to act. We have just 1 week for knowing each other.
My idea of international association is a bit different. First of all there should be transparency, then there should be communication and finally all the different
situations must be represented. MC is not just european, it involves people from all around the world and located all around the world, we should give the opportunity to everybody to vote and to be represented. For many people it is difficult to move (for several reasons) and not coming to the GA they do not have the right to vote (online elections?).
In the statute (that we do not know and we must approve ... of course the board can change it, but why discussing it just with a few people of MCFA instead all the MC?) should be clear that in the board must be present people from all the continents (or located in all of them), people part of different actions (IEF, IOF, IIF and whatever ...) and/or coming from different fields otherwise we risk not having a balanced representations especially in a group of people so fragmented! How can EU people know what problems a non-EU must face coming here? That's why international entities have in their boards representatives of all countries.
I'm sure many other issues could be raised discussing with all the MC.
Probably this post will not like to someone, but I think before taking decisions the discussion is fundamental so please post here as much as you can!
... Sorry but I like provoking people :-)
Riccardo
13 Comments
Dear Riccardo,
I have posted a reply to your initial posting. Here below I post some more answers.
The MCFA is not supporting ALL people that have experienced MC mobility. The MCAA does. The MCFA have been more selective in their membership. The are not open to MC 'fellows' from all MC actions.
There are rules for the establishment of a legal entity such as the MCAA in Belgium. During the 1st GA only people present can vote. However after the formal establishment (which will be not later than 2 months after the 1st GA) electronic voting will be both allowed and in place.
Finally the MCFA is an independent from the EC body that make their own decisions. They will present themselves and their intentions during the 1st GA, so you will have the opportunity to ask them directly your questions.
MCAA is perceived as global, not just 'european'. It is foreseen that national chapters can be established and their chairs will have a seat on the board. Furthermore there were no restrictions for membership in the governing bodies of the MCAA based on anything, not on EU citizenship in any case. The travel grants were distributed on a 1st come-1st served basis.
The Articles of Association have to be presented to belgian authorities for the establishment of the legal entity. Discussing these articles with 2500 members before even having a legal entity is practically extremely difficult. I would suggest that after the establishment of the MCAA legal entity all your questions and many more can and will find their answers. If they result in altering the Articles of Association, so be it, it will be for the MCAA to decide. As will be everything else.
At present the establishment of the MCAA is the main priority, and elections are necessary in order to present to the Belgian authorities an organisation with names on the Executive and on the Board.
I am sure that we have plenty of time, and after the 1st GA the proper framework, to discuss anything and everything that might be raised by any member of the MCAA.
Dear Riccardo,
I am not a member of MCFA, but I have experience with another European association of researchers, which is quite known and respected at European level, even world-wide. Establishing association under Belgian low is really difficult task and it may look as a nightmare for those who are not professionals. We needed more then 3 years to get it officially registered under Belgian low and we spent a lot of energy, time and efforts in order to get it done. Having such experience, I really appreciate legal and all other help that we get related to registration of association. Certainly, I will appreciate to have articles known before the GA as we could read them in time. Later we can make necessary changes if it would be required. Additionally, aside from the Statute, associations can have internal regulations, which we can produce any time upon our needs.
Snezana
Thanx for all your comments.
Raul I also agree that MCFA members could bring some experience to MCAA, but I also see there is some problem especially in communication and transparency.
Odissefs I have seen your replies and I know something about MCAA and MCFA just thanx to your kindness. I understand that creating such kind of association can be difficult, but it could also be nice to give some brief information to the people trying to be part of the association itself. Thank you for the expalination, now many things are clearer.
Snezana thanx also for your reply, it is nice having people experienced and active like you, great idea creating a group for welcoming PhDs (I would extend it to the ESR, I got my PhD when I already was experienced researcher).
Having all this new info, it could be nice receiving some clarification and answers from MCFA people. After Odessefs' explaination I have many other questions, I understand that they are not open to everybody, but due to the fact that they are now candidated for an association of ALL MC, they should start communicating.
Riccardo
Riccardo, I am glad that you liked idea on PhDs' corner and I extended it to the ESRs as you proposed. Actually, in the explanation of the group the ESRs were already included, but I did not put them in the title in order to avoid confusions. There have been different definitions for ESRs, that might be particularly confusing for researchers from non-European countries. PhDs have been given particular attention also due to their specific position in European policy framework, as they are influenced both by research and education policies. Anyway, now both are in the tittle, so everybody is welcome.
Riccardo, I saw your post on the MCFA facebook group, but I could not answer because we do not have an official answer of MCFA/MCAA difference. I guess it was the same for other people active on facebook as well.
Not open to everybody refers that in the MCFA full member can be only who completed a one year fellowship. So IRSES fellows or fellows who had an FP5 host grant of 3 or 6 months do not qualify.
I saw no problems of transparency, in my experience everybody who candidated to the MCFA board was taken, even without being physically present at the GA, based on the motivation. Unfortunately being self-funded not so many people attend. The MCFA had 20 board positions and in the current board we are 11. But for the MCAA it seems that even 20 board positions would have been too few.
What might have been the EMail communication problems can be due to our problems with the website for which we haven't found yet a satisfactory solution (and this is also why the Letter to Members comes delayed, although I write it in time).
Hello Maria,
my idea of communication is probably different than yours. If someone asks me something I reply, whatever the question is, at least I say "I'm sorry, I do not know"! But it does not mind.
When I wrote that you have communication problems I meant many other things, in your website (as in the MCAA website) is impossible to get even a simple information about the association itself (is there any regulation, is there any objective?), if you try to register you can not do that (as you confirmed it, and this problems stands there at least from last march!) there was not any update until this June and I have also wrote some emails to your colleague for having information and/or to register, but after few months without replies (I have just received a reply stating that it was too hot in summer :-) ), I gave up. But we are not talking here about MCFA.
To be honest when I have seen the new MCAA website I thought "oh nice, maybe something efficient where you can really participate actively", but it seems to be similar to MCFA, now I know that all the precedures were discussed with MCFA board, I see that almost all MCFA board is candidated to the elections and of course you will get elected since you are the only organized group at the GA and I'm (really) afraid that MCAA will be managed exactly as the MCFA. And this is not because I'm also candidated, I can even step down, but it is because I would like to see something working since I really thing this is a great apportunity for everybody. It seems that I'm not the only one having this idea (see above, and I do not know Raul), you can define transparent the position of MCFA on this regard, but it is not at all.
As you see, I use to be always open and clear and this looks to me some "game" that I do not like to see, since I have left my country long time ago exactly fro these reasons ...
I really hope to be wrong!
Anyway all this will come up during the GA, unfortunately just after the elections!
Riccardo
Dear Riccardo,
First, it is not true that you can't register, registrations work fine again since we have moved to a new hosting service 6 months ago (and I approved the registration of 70 people since then).
Why did we need to move to a new hosting service? Because the hosting service password has (to put it simply) been stolen by someone who had previously legitimate access to it. Some board members including myself have spent a lot of time trying to recover the account (which did not work), then setting up a new website on a new hosting service (this is more complex than it seems, there are also connections to the members database and with the back office functionalities we need). Things are still far from perfect, but please remember that MCFA only lives thanks to volunteer work and membership fees from its members, it is quite unfair to compare what we could do with what can be done by full-time contractants whose salaries are paid by the EC.
This been said, you are certainly right (in your post 8 days ago) that there isn't room for 2 associations. It seems logical that one of them would merge or disappear, and it won't be the one with the most external funding (and maybe the quasi-existence of MCAA already hasn't helped MCFA regaining momentum after resolving the issues with its website). This is quite sad for people who have devoted a lot of time to the MCFA, but we must adapt to the new context where there is an MCAA.
Anyway, if anyone had difficulties registering at http://mcfa.eu/ in the past, you can retry now. If you have registered about a year ago and cannot log in anymore (even with password reminder), please register again, as your registration may have been lost in the transition to the new hosting.
(I am a MCFA board member but not a candidate to the MCAA board)
Well, if it was after me I would have been in Vilnius this weekend at the genderSTE meeting since I represent the MCFA in genderSTE. But because the MCFA should support the MCAA (I don't know if the programme was updated) I have no other choice to keep this representation than to candidate (the COST action genderSTE is running 4 years and only one passed), in my guess at least. Unfortunately the detailed candidature text was not published. And speaking of COST the coordinators of the young researchers group whom I propose for the COST action Sci-Generation do not candidate to the MCAA.
To say that I would not know the difference would have been a wrong answer as well, and I hoped somebody has a better one.
It is a luck that you manage to survive abroad. I was abroad 11 years but returned 6 years ago to my home country, not because I prefered it but because I needed a paid job. Now the experience abroad begins to pale and I get mostly help and feedback from people in Romania. In Italy I got good money, but in Germany I was mostly on my savings from short time jobs and on family help. However, from Germany I would have not returned as I was perfectly integrated, and for this reason it was good to go to Italy because it was easier to return, I don't miss it that much either. And right now I am building connections with Portugal (also my boss in Italy was Portuguese).
Dear Riccardo,
as an outsider for both MCAA and MCFA, the answer to your question is straightforward to me: the European Commission wants an official Association of the Marie-Curie Fellows directly linked to the Commission and supported by it. That make sense to me.
This should warrant a broad impact for the MCAA towards young investigators and Universities across Europe.
Yes, I would like as you and Raoul to have the possibility to read the articles before we vote them, but, on the other hand, I understand the technical difficulties and I think the Board will have the power to make changes if needed.
I admire the efforts of MCFA over the past years, but I think the two associations should consider merging into one. If this is not possible, I agree with Raoul: the two Boards should not be overlapping.
See you in Brussel
Francesco
Hi Francesco,
there would not be any problem even to me in merging the 2 associations, that could be transparent and fair. But this unfortunately is not the case and iti s what we are discussing about. At this point it seems that nobody is interested in solving this problem, so we must follow the discussion after the elections.
Riccardo
Hi Riccardo,
why do you write that it will be not the case, to get the merge of both associations done with transparency? We have rigth now finished an statement about the two associations. It will be available at our website and here in some minutes I guess.
The board of the MCFA has to meet and to work together to prepare such things. That needs time. And commitment. So please give us at least a chance to show that we are also fair and transparent.
I will be glad to continue this discussion with everybody on saturday.
Natalia
Hi Riccardo,
I completely understand your (and other people's) confusion about the existence of two alumni associations. For now just think that one has been operating with no funds on volunteer basis for around 15 years and the other has just been created by the European Commission with many ambitions. There is the intention to merge but there are many issues to discuss first.
The longer explanation would probably not fit in this post but will be public at the MCFA site soon (I do not really track what is going on Facebook that much). In any case I would be happy to talk to you about this. In case you are interested, many of us will be arriving Brussels this Friday and meet at 21.30 for a drink if would like join us. Whoever is interested in the topic is also welcome. Here you can find the details of the meeting:
http://mcfa.eu/site3/?q=join-us-friday-night-drink
Thanks Riccardo for your thoughts. I am currently a MCF in Germany, and I am not a candidate for any position in the Board of MCAA.
I believe that the Board of MCFA would bring a lot of expertise to MCAA but I don't believe is good for MCAA that several people shares Board in MCAA and MCFA. I have not seen the articles of MCAA and I believe that should be sent to everybody registered here, at least. Also I would propose that no one in the board of MCAA will be able to be in boards of any other marie curie related organizations. That would ensure the independency and transparency. Is just a proposal
But again, if MCFA "dissappear" or fusions with MCAA, that is no problem at all as I said, their expertiese is more than welcome.
Regarding the multidisciplinarity I also agree with you. It should be somehow a representant of all the panels (I know that in H2020 that changes..but you'll get my point) in the Board.
I know that because of the distance and the fact all MCF are wildly distributed around the world is difficult to coordinate so many things. But I would like to read the articles before the meeting, if not I don't know how we can vote them or propose changes...
Hope my opinions are well understood. Just trying to help and is not a complain to anyone! thanks for yoru time anyway and see you in brussels!