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A new precedent for the involvement of early career scientists
Jenny Baeseman and Hugue Lantuit of APECS look forward to seeing a large group of early career polar scientists in Oslo in June: - The IPY Oslo Science Conference is on its way to set a new precedent for the involvement of early career scientists and the activities available for young researchers to further their careers.
They are listing an APECS Professional Development workshop, a networking reception with senior mentors, awards for outstanding young researcher presentations, stipends, travel fellowships and much more. APECS is the Association of Polar Early Career Scientists, founded as a direct result of the involvement of a new generation of polar scientists in IPY.
Deadline for abstracts and applications for early career stipends is 20th of January. Dr. Lantuit, a geomorphologist, working at AWI in Potsdam, urges the more than 1800 members of APECS to register and submit their abstracts.
- The application to the APECS workshop, Oslo Stipend and Travel Fellowships is tied to the abstract submission system. After you submit your abstract you will be asked if you want to apply for these things, check the tick box and you will be taken to the application, he says and offers another piece of advice: - You are allowed to go back into the system and edit your application - but to help you have your answers to the questions ready, you can get a sneak peak of the application from the APECS Website.
Involvement in every step
Director of APECS, Dr. Jenny Baeseman, moved offices to Tromsø last year. She admits there are still many challenges facing young scientists, but she sees this event as a breakthrough for her organization:
- For the first time, a major international and interdisciplinary conference on bi-polar research has involved early career scientists in every step of the planning process, including serving as full voting members of the Conference Steering Committee and Science Theme Committees.
- Many other conferences are starting to include APECS researchers in the organizing of events, but this conference has taken things one step further with the recognition that a continuum of knowledge needs to be created by including an early career researcher as a co-convener for every session, says Jenny Baeseman. She informs us that this already has started a new trend and many other conference-planning groups have come to APECS to find young researchers for similar roles in other conferences.
Hugues Lantuit and Jenny Baeseman, both of them founding members of the organization, find it even more groundbreaking that APECS is named amongst the co-sponsors of this conference, showing not only good will, but also an acceptance that an organization of young researchers is an important partner. - This clearly demonstrates that it is not your age that matters; it's your ideas and the energy, enthusiasm, and motivation you can bring to the table.
Mentors and potential employers
- For a young researcher, this type of opportunity not only exposes them to great science in their specific field, but it shows potential employers and colleagues that they are the future leaders and are willing to take on extra work for the betterment of research.
The APECS leadership praise their mentors: - We are very fortunate that the Senior Polar Research community recognizes retention of these young researchers is important and are participating in the many mentoring events that APECS is helping to create. It is this mentoring that is so critical to the retention of new researchers created though IPY.
Dr. Baeseman regards the emphasis on education, outreach and communication in the IPY-OSC program as an additional advantage: - Today's young polar researchers are committed not only to doing excellent research, but communicating their results to the public and they value this as an important part of their job. We would improve the retention of these young researchers, particularly women, if the evaluation method for tenure and promotion considered education outreach equal in importance to journal publications.
For a complete list of activities for young researchers - and tips just for APECS members to help you increase your chances of receiving financial assistance, log into the APECS website and go to http://www.apecs.is/oslo2010 under the meetings and events heading.
Your early career colleagues hope to see you in Oslo!
Last updated: 21.01.2010
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