Hi Francesco,

we are beginning to gain members here in Germany after sending an email to all relevant people, who already joined MCAA. Our membership is now 170. Our plan is to organize events and use those events to further drive membership of our chapter and the MCAA. If we organize an event, we will advertise first to our members but also ask Euraxess to forward the email to all currently active fellows and their bosses. The bosses have to show that they supported the career development plan of the fellows. If we provide this service through organizing events, then we continually grow the membership of the MCAA and chapter. The relevant text from the call for individual fellows is:

5.2.c Career Development Plan
The Career Development Plan must be produced by the Experienced Researcher and the supervisor prior to the start of the fellowship.
In addition to research objectives, this plan comprises the researcher’s training and career needs, including training on transferable skills, planning for publications and participation in conferences.
This dedicated and high-level plan will act as a reference for the Experienced Researcher to monitor for her/himself the progress of work, training and publications, and to take corrective measures if deviations and delays are observed in order to attain the professional development targets.

The MCAA can provide this training through the chapters.

We are planning to run a careers seminar in June and most probably in Darmstadt (close to Frankfurt). We have not yet found a room to hold the event but are running through topics, possible guests and other practicalities. If you think our event can help you in any way, please get in contact. We are looking for a room with capacity for 50-100 guests. We could possibly open this up to guests from Poland, Czech Republic and Switzerland. Some of our topics will be national but relevant to everywhere - soft skills or how to apply for funding for a junior research group from the DFG (German Research Foundation). Our chapter funding is small and we are looking at how to charge a small amount to pay for food and so on. If this event is of use to you, get in touch with me. We still have time to change various things.

Switzerland has no chapter: we have members there in Basel, Zurich and Lucerne. Switzerland has different issues than EU countries. I lived there for over 7 years.

France is also a neighbouring country and has no national chapter yet. I would suggest the Paris chapter renames itself France and organises events in Paris and networks with the agencies based in Paris.

Small point: We have many German members in foreign countries and some write on applying for membership that they are joining because they will return to Germany some day. Many of the countries listed above have more members living outside the country than inside - they are experiencing brain drain - the emigration of skilled people. This means, a hypothetical Belarussian MCAA member living in Germany might be an active member of our German chapter and might join the Belarussian chapter but not be in a position to actively organize activities in Belarus. This applies to many countries above.

Regards,

Brian

Hi Francesco. I´m not sure we should point to countries having the higest number of MC as nationality. This does not mean that they are in their home country and they can actively contribute to the chapter. I think we should look to the countries having the highest number of MC at the moment and maybe create multi-country chapters giving the opportunity to more people as possible to contribute (e.g. czech-polish-slovak or Hungary-Romania-Bulgaria ...). Remind that the the number of MCAA members registering to the chapters is probably 50% or less of the resident and the number of active members within the registered ones is probably 50% of the registered or less (25% or less of the resident). This means for example that in Poland (with 30 MCAA members currently living there), you can maybe find 7 active members (maybe ...).

On top of this I would help in 1 country.

Hi Francesco and everyone,

I agree with the fact we have to take in account the current country number. However, also the multi-country idea is nice, but the only problem could be a pratical problem for organizing the event. What I mean is that moving in another country to partecipate to that kind of event could be discuoraging for anyone want to know more about the association but that is not really aware of it. Anyways, I am available to take care about contacting the MC in Greece or/and help for something else. We have to try to get as many members as possible, either to have a relevant events and spread the name and the possibility the association can give.

Keep in touch,

Andrea

Dear Riccardo,

thanks for your email. The decision was made on the basis of the "host country" parameter. However, last night I also had a doubt and I asked Simon. His reply is :

Current country is the country of present residence, as input by the individual member in their personal profile (and thus indicated on the map-locator/search facility).

Host country is the country in which the member undertook their MCF experience, as input by the individual member in their personal profile.

Therefore, the important parameter is the "current country" and, according to Table 2, the countries will be in order Greece, Poland and Czech Republic. 

Since we are already 3 people we could be each one responsible of a different country (or group of countries) without distinguishing the role (it is not a big deal managing a group until it does not really work) and then we can leave the management to a local person once we have officially created the chapter. What do you think?

For example, since Prague is not that far from Austria I could invite someone from Czech to the next Austrian chapter meeting in Vienna so we can "train" them in some way and since I will go in Prague in June/July for the IUGG conference I could organize some kind of kick-off meeting of Czech chapter on that period and then let them go ahead independently. 

And I could start advertising the new chapters also at EGU and IUGG conferences where I will be in the next 4 months.

Riccardo

hello Franscesco. I have some questions. Could we skype whenever you are available?  Thank you so much for all your work. Best wishes, ines