Report of the Annual General Meeting of the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc)

Salome Adam (VAUZ) and Mirco Grüter (VAUZ & Actionuni) were this year’s Actionuni’s delegates at the “Annual General Meeting” (AGM) of “the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc) that took place in Tampere, Finland from the 20.-21. April 2018. The AGM is Eurodoc’s highest decision-making body.

The AGM started (Day 1) with the discussion of last year’s board’s and administration’s activities. We can definitely agree with the statement made by Gareth O’Neill (president of Eurodoc 2017 – 2018) to summarize all these activities: “This year has been an extremely active year” Gareth said in his speech, "and we have reorganised much of the inner administration workings of Eurodoc. We have also engaged extensively with key partners and stakeholders. As a result, we are currently highly visible and are involved in many meetings, projects, and proposals." (cited).
The day continued with the presentation of the new Eurodoc survey, discussions on amendments to the current statutes and of the financial statement, which were concluded by a voting process. We finished this first day with several workshops on equality, media activities and how to coordinate a working group.
On the second day we started with a strategic discussion on Eurodoc’s annual goals. These goals included improving the financial situation, visibility and internal structures. In addition, the new priority topics were defined, which are: Open Science, Mental Health, Research Integrity, Next Generation Internet, and Pensions for Early-Career Researchers. After voting on these annual goals, the board and administration were elected.
Actionuni will be represented in the upcoming term (2018-2019) by Salome Adam, who has taken on the role as coordinator of the Eurodoc working group on accreditation. Last year Salome was the coordinator of the working group mobility and Mirco Grüter the accreditation officer.
We would like to thank the whole Eurodoc board and administration for all their contributions and we wish the best to all new and re-elected board and secretariat members for next year.
If you want to learn more about Eurodoc in general and/or how to be become actively involved, please feel free to get in contact with Salome Adam or Mirco Grüter.

Report of the Annual General Meeting of the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc)

Salome Adam (VAUZ) and Mirco Grüter (VAUZ & Actionuni) were this year’s Actionuni’s delegates at the “Annual General Meeting” (AGM) of “the European Council of PhD Candidates and Junior Researchers” (Eurodoc) that took place in Tampere, Finland from the 20.-21. April 2018. The AGM is Eurodoc’s highest decision-making body.

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Actionuni participated in a public consultation on how EU funds should be used

In consultation with Eurodoc, Actionuni participated in a public consultation on how EU funds should be used in the areas of investment, research &innovation, SMEs and the single market.

We highlighted in particular the importance of a full funding of EU research programs and asked the EU to:

  1. Increase budget of FP9
  2. Support Open Science for researchers
  3. Support career development of researchers
  4. Fund research into mental health of researchers

You’ll find our complete answers here (PDF)

Statement on the new Framework Programme (FP)

Eurodoc has released a statement on the new Framework Programme (FP) for Research and Technological Development. The current programme FP8 or Horizon 2020 has been extremely successful with a budget of circa €80 billion and focusing on Excellent Science, Industrial Leadership, and Societal Challenges. The next programme FP9 will run from 2021 to 2027 and is currently being developed in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders.

Eurodoc has identified four key issues for early-career researchers which they would like to be taken into account in FP9:

  1. Increase the Budget for Excellent Science and Early-Career Researchers
  2. Raise Awareness and Train and Support Researchers in Open Science
  3. Support Career Development and Intersectoral Mobility of Researchers
  4. Support Research into Work-Life Balance and Mental Health of Researchers

Eurodoc’s handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates

The project SuperProfDoc has led to the publication of a new handbook on the best practices relative to the mentorship of doctoral candidates. Claudia Dobrinski and John Peacock, both from Eurodoc, included the results of numerous experiences of successful doctoral supervisions at European universities to support their study. “A handbook for supervisors of modern doctorate candidates” establishes the state of the art in the professional mentorship of Ph.D. candidates.

Eurodoc Conference 2017 “Open Science” and Annual General Meeting

At this year’s Eurodoc conference from 26-29 April 2017 in Oslo, Norway, Burim Ramaj and Cécile Blaser, both University of Fribourg, represented actionuni. Eurodoc is the European Association of doctoral candidates and young researchers. actionuni (Switzerland) is member in Eurodoc since 2006. In total, 32 organisations are member of Eurodoc, representing their respective European countries and the Council of Europe.

This year’s topic was of the Annual Conference of Eurodoc was “Open Science”, a heavily discussed topic also in Switzerland.

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