New EMCR activities in 2018–19

Sandra Gardam
Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Policy Analyst
Australian Academy of Science
@sandra_gardam

About the time you were probably furiously writing grant applications earlier this year, many of you took a small bit of time out to write a different kind of application: one to the Theo Murphy Initiative. (And just to put it straight out there: for the next round we will be moving the application period so it does not overlap with grant-writing season. Sorry—our bad!)

The Theo Murphy Initiative asks EMCRs what type of activity or support they think will benefit them and their peers. In other words, it is your chance to suggest a conference, a workshop, an online resource, a networking event, or anything else you can think of, in your field or across all fields, that will benefit EMCRs in Australia. You then get the chance to work with the support of the EMCR unit at the Australian Academy of Science and with funding through the Theo Murphy Fund to develop your idea into a reality.

We received 45 proposals for activities in the most recent round and are very excited to officially announce the seven projects which will be run through the Theo Murphy Initiative in 2018–19.

A number of initiatives for EMCRs will be provided as part of the Cutaneous Biology 2018 conference. These include a workshop, a networking event and a masterclass. More information about the conference is available now and travel grants are now open for application if you wish to attend.

An industry–researcher engagement event will be held at the International Conference for Young Researchers in Advanced Materials (ICYRAM) to bring together approximately 100 EMCRs with over 20 businesses. Mobility grants to enable 10 emerging researchers to attend the conference have also been offered.

MAGIC: Mentoring and Guidance in Careers Workshop is a five-day workshop for females or people of diverse gender identity in mathematical and physical sciences to overcome persistent problems they face in establishing a career in science. Applications to attend will open in July.

Knowledge Collaboration Across Boundaries is a two-day all-discipline EMCR conference focusing on encouraging collaborations across disciplines. It will be held in November in Canberra.

EMCRs will be able to pitch their research ideas on how to solve problems relating to urban heat for the chance to win seed funding grants at the Cooling Sydney Hack.

The Essential Transferable Skills Toolkit for STEM EMCRs will develop a series of seminars and online content on transferable skills essential for success in research. The seminars will be piloted at Deakin University and Macquarie University, and online materials will be broadly accessible.

The Frontiers of Science Symposium on Healthy Ageing will bring together EMCRs working in various aspect of ageing and will include opportunities for intergenerational networking.

We hope that many of you will take part in these activities over the next 12 months. Thank you to those who contributed proposals, and we also hope to see lots more proposals from EMCRs in the next round opening in October.