Dr Sharath Sriram, Chair (Acting), Australian Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Forum
The Australian Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Forum of the Australian Academy of Science serves as the voice of the country's future scientific and research leaders. We currently reach over 3,200 individuals and are seeking to broaden and increase our engagement with Australian EMCRs to better represent their views, needs and vision to decision makers within the government, Members of Parliament and key funding agencies.
An impressive 953 of you contributed to a survey on postdoctoral experiences and plans in our pilot survey in 2013—view the key findings. The second Australian Postdoctoral Reference Survey is now open and will run to 31 January 2015. Your input in these surveys helps shape the direction of the forum and its campaigns.
In the last quarter, the forum has highlighted issues pertaining to EMCRs in submissions to the Australian Research Council in relation to its proposed changes to Funding Rules and to the Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into Australia's Innovation System.
In seeking to broaden our engagement we have organised a series of networking events around the country with special guest speakers, where we will provide an overview of the forum's activities and ways to get involved. Come along to these engagement events in Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney (tbc) to learn more about the forum and interact with like-minded EMCRs.
With a renewed emphasis on better and broader engagement with the Australian EMCR community, the forum is developing a brand identity with a new logo. Find out about the inspiration for the logo.
The Academy's traditional Early Days newsletter is now being replaced by this new quarterly publication with a greater focus on EMCR issues, policies and announcements. As we hope this will create opportunities to define careers and their transitions, the newsletter is being renamed EMCR Pathways and is aligned to the forum's national meetings—the Science Pathways series. Be on the lookout for announcements regarding Science Pathways 2015 in Adelaide on 23-24 April next year!
I also take this opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of Krystal Evans who stepped down as Chair of the forum in August having taken over as the CEO of the BioMelbourne Network. Krystal was part of the vibrant team which founded the forum and her enthusiasm played a major role in shaping the forum and its presence.
Our annual call for members, by which we replace 3-4 people on the 10-member forum executive, is now open. We have created a two-stage process for nominations. The first stage is a brief expression of interest to be returned by CoB Monday 3 November 2014. Only short-listed nominees will be asked to provide further detailed information. We look forward to submissions from enthusiastic future science leaders who are passionate about contributing to policy and engaging with Australian EMCRs.
To give the forum's voice more strength, we urge you to engage more strongly with us and encourage your colleagues to get involved to by signing up to the EMCR list. We are always keen to hear from you—any issues, ideas, events, opportunities etc.—and you can reach us at emcr@science.org.au or me directly at sharath.sriram@rmit.edu.au.
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