Networking activities

One of the main tasks of actionuni is the exchange with key stakeholders to influence the Education, Research and Innovation Policy of the coming years. Here we inform you in short about these networking activities.

actionuni is proud to present its new board!

Actionuni held its 2021 general assembly online. Congratulations to our new co-president’s Laia Guardiola and Marco Prost. Hannah Schoch is elected as new board member. Furthermore, congratulations to Melanie Roethlisberger on being officially elected as actionuni’s delegate to Open Science.
Please check our board page for contact details.
A very warm welcome to the new board members and thanks to outgoing co-presidents Rashmi Rai-Rawat and Carmen Faso who wish good luck to the new board for their future work!

Eurodoc 2021 Virtual Conference

Call for Expressions of Interest in Eurodoc Administration 2021/2022 Positions
Send your replies to consultation@eurodoc.net

Dear All,

Our Eurodoc Conference and AGM 2021 is approaching fast and we are looking forward to seeing you all there (http://www.eurodoc.net/conference-agm-2021).

We are looking for interested and enthusiastic candidates for the seven administrative board positions:

– President = leads the organisation and represents Eurodoc legally and officially

– Vice-President = supports and takes over from the president when necessary

– Treasurer = responsible for the organisation’s finances and financial transactions

– Secretary = responsible for communication and archives and tracking activities

– 3 x General Board Member = choice of topics such as the Annual Questionnaire

We are also looking for interested and enthusiastic candidates for our secretariat for possible positions:

– Secretariat-Coordinator = coordinates activities of secretariat members and liaises with the board

– Financial Controller = critically checks the finances and financial transactions and financial reports

– Policy Officer = writing and contributing to policy statements and reports, representative in Initiative for Science Europe (ISE)

– Legal Officer(s) = responsible for reviewing contracts and agreement with Stakeholders and internal Governance; managing personal data and images

– Data Manager= responsible for internal data management and storage of data and documents

– Skills Officer = responsible for developing skills policies and liaising with our skills stakeholders

– EOSC Officer = responsible for developing EOSC and cloud policies and liaising with EOSC stakeholders

– Council of Europe officer = responsible for supporting the Eurodoc delegation at the Council of Europe

– BFUG Officer(s) = responsible for collaboraboration with Bologna Follow-up Group (BFUG)

– External Communication Coordinator = responsible for liaising with the board, coordinating the activities of the communication team, and issuing press releases
– Social Media Officer = responsible for messaging and interacting via our social media channels

– Newsletter Officer = responsible for collecting and publishing content in our monthly newsletter

– Language Officer = native English speaker responsible for checking and correcting Eurodoc texts

– Webmaster = responsible for maintaining and backing up the Eurodoc website

– Working Group Coordinator = coordinates activities in a specific working group, such as Open Science

We selected 12 working groups which will need coordinators (and members) for activities and policies of the next term:

– Democracy-Sustainability = discussing and monitoring policies on academic freedom; discussing approaches of sustainability in research and academia

– Doctoral Training = discussing and developing policies on doctoral training and skills development

– Equality = discussing and developing policies on equality with a focus on gender, ethnic and cultural diversity, and special needs

– Finance = a closed working group (i.e., Eurodoc members only) focusing on Eurodoc finances and funding

– Governance = a working group (i.e., Eurodoc members only) on Eurodoc governance and regulations

– Employment & Careers = discussing policies on employment status and conditions, and career development

– Interdisciplinarity = discussing and developing policies on improving interdisciplinary collaboration

– Mental Health = discussing and developing policies to raise awareness and improve mental health

– Mobility = policies on mobility with a focus on intersectoral and geographic mobility and brain drain

– Open Science = policies on Open Science with a focus on Open Access and -Data, and Citizen Science

– Policy Research = discussing and developing general policies for early-career researchers and Eurodoc

– Research Integrity and Assessment = discussing and developing policies on research assessment, research integrity and integrity projects

See our Eurodoc statute for more information on our organisation and legal regulations and positions:

[http://eurodoc.net/eurodoc/eurodoc-statute]

Note that all positions are voluntary: work is not financially rewarded but some costs might be covered.

How to do Better Science-a roundtable with Joel Schaad from the Better Science team

On 31 May 2021, actionuni held a roundtable on the theme of improving research culture with Joel Schaad, the project coordinator of Better Science as the main speaker. Researchers from several Swiss Higher Education Institutions participated. Delegatesboard members and some guests of actionuni were invited in this roundtable. The main objective of actionuni was to promote and support the better science initiative. 

Joel presented Better Sciencea Swiss-wide initiative that started in the University of Bern. It aims to raise awareness around the theme of healthy research culture in academia and to open the dialogue on how to improve it. In particular, Better Science has crafted ten calls to action, which can be found and supported on their website. The presentation was followed by a round of discussion, during which the members of the audience actively asked questions and shared their opinion on this important topic. Participants agreed that there is a need to improve research culture and appreciated the charter and direction set by Better Science. Several attendees were of the opinion that to achieve a better research culturestructural changes and concrete measures coming from the top are neededThe question of how to monitor the evolution of research culture was also raised  

Overall, the event successfully engaged researchers from different universities and led to interesting discussions, with the prospect of a follow-up workshop or event related to the topic of improving research culture.  

Open Science: an info online lunch talk organised by actionuni

What is Open Science and why is it important to fully understand its benefits and potential limitations, especially for ECRs?
Join us for our online event on Thursday 29. April, over lunch, for a chance to ask your questions and inform yourself on this important topic.
Register here by the 26th of April to receive the link to join the seminar online.
This event is organised in collaboration with mvub, eurodoc and OILS!

Graduate Campus UZH-Workshop on “The Legal Aspects of Open Science”

We gladly post this announcement by our colleagues at the Graduate Campus-UZH

Dear doctoral candidates and postdocs,

The Graduate Campus and the Data Services & Open Access Team of the University of Zurich are offering an online workshop on legal aspects of Open Science that is open to all junior researchers from Swiss higher education institutions.

When it comes to Open Science, one of the most common uncertainties in sharing publications and data openly is the legal framework. What can or cannot be shared? What licenses can be applied? Who owns the copyright to my article or dataset?

As a follow-up event to the Summer School “Yes, We’re Open!” hosted by the University of Zurich last August, a virtual workshop on “The Legal Aspects of Open Science” will take place on February 5, 2021 (9:00 – 13:00). Like the Summer School, this workshop is open to all doctoral students and postdocs of all Swiss universities, universities of applied sciences and universities of teacher education, as well as of all academic disciplines. It is led by CCdigitallaw and covers topics such as copyright, Creative Commons licenses and data protection, and it introduces the DMLawTool (Data Management Law Tool).

Participation in the workshop is not bound to participation in the Summer School or any other prior knowledge, and it is free of charge. You may register at the following link: https://www.openscience-summerschool.uzh.ch/en.html