Science Pathways 2016: Future Leaders

Dr Michael Crichton EMCR Forum Executive member and co-convenor of Science Pathways 2016
@michaelc1983

Science Pathways 2016: Future Leaders is now open for registration, with a program of amazing leaders and many amazing opportunities to build your skills and network.

Since our last newsletter, the EMCR Forum has been working hard to put the pieces into place to ensure that Science Pathways 2016 will be the best yet. We’ve collated an amazing group of speakers, got a great venue, organised some wonderful sponsors and now we’re ready to get everyone registered! Concurrently, we’ve also kicked off a science communication competition, 180 Seconds of Science, which will give entrants a chance to win attendance at Science Pathways 2016 by entering a three-minute video of their research.

So, why should you join us? Well, we’ve got a bit of everything when it comes to leading researcher leaders. We have senior university management, business management consultants, board members, science communicators, venture capitalists and many, many stories and insights that come with them. The program includes a mix of presentations, panel discussions, workshops and networking—all with a cohort of attendees that will be looking to grow to become the next generation of Australia’s leaders. This is a great opportunity to get together with future colleagues and share in a wealth of experience.

But every conference or professional development seminar says that they’ll make you a leader, right? You might be asking how Science Pathways 2016 is going to be different. Well, the EMCR Forum Executive is a group of volunteers supported by the Australian Academy of Science, focused on improving research environments for EMCRs. We feel passionately about the importance of research and advocate strongly to government to safeguard and improve research careers. So when we put on Science Pathways events we are careful to select presenters who also share this passion. We make sure that there is time for EMCR attendees to get to know each other and share war stories of their careers so far. We also do what we can to open opportunities to as many potential attendees as possible, so that geography or family commitments don’t prevent people’s attendance. This year with the generous sponsorship of the University of Canberra we offered a number of carer grants to ensure that those parents with young children can access extra support to join our meeting. We congratulate the awardees of these grants and look forward to welcoming them at Science Pathways.

The topic for Science Pathways this year is Future Leaders, which reflects the EMCR Forum’s most important vision—to secure the future of Australian science. We know that current EMCRs are going to be leading science forward over the coming decades, and we want to make sure that they (we) have the competitive advantage. And this isn’t just in academia. EMCRs across industry, government and academia are going to need to work together to ensure that career paths are successful and that Australia can grow from the excellent research we know can be done. So we’re bringing together experts from each of these fields to share their expertise and views on how a leader should act. You can find out more about the program online.

So in the coming months we won’t be filling your inbox with too many emails, but we will be tweeting (@EMCRForum #SciPath16) and circulating details through research organisations around the country. We’ll be sticking up posters and trying to get our friends and colleagues to do the same. The EMCR Forum Executive will still be working on government submissions and best-practice guides to help EMCRs across the country. And we’ll be making three-minute videos for 180 Seconds of Science. We hope that you’ll take some time to have a look at the program and register and that we will see you in September at Science Pathways 2016: Future Leaders.