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.