Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MSCA2024BE (Researchers' careers: multiple pathways)
Période du rapport: 2024-02-01 au 2024-11-30
On behalf of Belgium, the Service public de Wallonie (SPW Research) aims to organise a 2-day event to explore the multiple pathways of researchers’ careers, and, in particular how PhDs can be prepared to face these careers.
The very first sentence of the MSCA Work Programme 2023- 2024 reads: “The European Union needs a strong, resilient, flexible and creative human resource base, with the right combination of skills to match the future needs of the labor market, to innovate and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit”.
In the conference programme, we plan to focus on four topics that are key aspects of MSCA’s future development:
• Multiple career paths for researchers: during the conference, we invite participants and speakers to take stock of current situations, to discuss challenges and to generate input for future (policy) initiatives on the topic of multiple career paths for researchers.
• Preparing researchers for multiple career paths: during the conference, we will showcase and investigate how training can provide our researchers with ‘the right combination of skills to match the future needs of the labor market, to innovate and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit’.
• Excellence: the MSC Actions focus on excellence in various aspects. During the conference we will highlight the excellence of individual fellows. The conference will highlight the achievements of MSCA beneficiaries and fellows. We plan to invite researchers to present a poster including information about their research and their career.
• MSCA open to the world: while research takes place in a global context to address global challenges, sometimes the research environment is challenged by events that make doing research difficult. The war in Ukraine continues to threaten Ukrainian researchers doing their work, threatens the Ukrainian research and innovation system and the freedom of scientific research at large. The MSCA4Ukraine scheme, launched in 2022, is now underway, and 124 Ukrainian researchers who fled the war are hosted by European host organizations under the MSCA4Ukraine scheme. The conference will give the floor to two fellows under this scheme who will share their testimony.
The conference will also provide a podium for the MSCA Awards Ceremony. The award competition will be organised by the European Commission in collaboration with the Belgian presidency, when it comes to the definition of the scope of the competition, the composition of the jury, the selection of the contestants and the participation in the jury.
The very first sentence of the MSCA Work Programme 2023- 2024 reads: “The European Union needs a strong, resilient, flexible and creative human resource base, with the right combination of skills to match the future needs of the labor market, to innovate and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit”.
In the conference programme, we plan to focus on four topics that are key aspects of MSCA’s future development:
• Multiple career paths for researchers: during the conference, we invite participants and speakers to take stock of current situations, to discuss challenges and to generate input for future (policy) initiatives on the topic of multiple career paths for researchers.
• Preparing researchers for multiple career paths: during the conference, we will showcase and investigate how training can provide our researchers with ‘the right combination of skills to match the future needs of the labor market, to innovate and to convert knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit’.
• Excellence: the MSC Actions focus on excellence in various aspects. During the conference we will highlight the excellence of individual fellows. The conference will highlight the achievements of MSCA beneficiaries and fellows. We plan to invite researchers to present a poster including information about their research and their career.
• MSCA open to the world: while research takes place in a global context to address global challenges, sometimes the research environment is challenged by events that make doing research difficult. The war in Ukraine continues to threaten Ukrainian researchers doing their work, threatens the Ukrainian research and innovation system and the freedom of scientific research at large. The MSCA4Ukraine scheme, launched in 2022, is now underway, and 124 Ukrainian researchers who fled the war are hosted by European host organizations under the MSCA4Ukraine scheme. The conference will give the floor to two fellows under this scheme who will share their testimony.
The conference will also provide a podium for the MSCA Awards Ceremony. The award competition will be organised by the European Commission in collaboration with the Belgian presidency, when it comes to the definition of the scope of the competition, the composition of the jury, the selection of the contestants and the participation in the jury.
1. PROMOTION OF THE EVENT
The MSCA 2024 conference was announced in Toledo during the Spanish presidency in November 2023. At that time, the website www.msca2024.eu was launched with a countdown timer.
During the period from 1/1/2024 to 1/5/2024, there were nearly 7 600 visits to the homepage of the site and 991 visits to the ‘registration’ page.
The two social networks, Facebook and LinkedIn, continued to be updated—albeit less regularly and with more anecdotal information—until the submission of this final report.
Before that, we asked three graphic design agencies for various tasks related to the visual identity of the conference:
• creation of an original image that will be present(ed) throughout the conference (from the website to the various goodies)
• a website containing all practical information (programme, speakers, registrations, ...)
2. PROGRAMME
The conference took place over two days, including the Falling Walls Labs competition organized by the European Commission.
Invitations to the various speakers were sent out as early as September 2023 (with some confirmations already received in July).
The final version of the program was finalized on 12/04/2024.
As indicated in the CSA, the conference alternated:
• individual presentations (opening and closing speeches, keynote speeches, testimonies …)
• round tables and workshops:
• Falling Wall Labs
All participants of the poster session also received a certificate of their participation signed by representatives of the Belgian presidency and the European Commission.
The Falling Walls Lab competition received high praise, providing 15 MSCA fellows the opportunity to present their projects in three-minute pitches.
To best prepare for the conference, briefing notes were written and distributed to the moderators, panelists, and the moderator. Meetings were then organized (with or without the presence of SPW recherche) to create smooth sessions.
Interactions with participants (both on-site and online) were initiated through questionnaires managed by Slido.
As previously mentioned, a poster session was organized alongside the conference, and the final ranking is provided below.
Twenty applications were selected, ensuring a balance between gender and disciplines (19 candidates presented).
3. MEETING ROOM SET UP
The setup for the conference (technical installation, lighting, including room decoration such as roll-ups, photo call wall, plants, and the poster area) was carried out the day before the conference by all partners and their contractors.
This also included signage directing attendees to meeting rooms (amusingly named "Polonium," "Radium," etc.) and other locations (cloakrooms, restrooms).
It is worth noting that three chill-out spaces were arranged with lounge chairs featuring the conference logo. These arrangements were well-received.
4. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
The programme included two social activities: a visit to the Mundaneum on the first evening with a networking dinner; and a visit to the “Rodin, a modern Renaissance” exhibition at the Mons Museum of Fine Arts on the afternoon of the second day.
These visits were unguided, but several people from the educational departments of these institutions were present.
The Mundaneum, sometimes known as the Paper Google, is one of 67 European museums to have been awarded the “European Heritage“ label and aimed to gather together all the world's knowledge and classify it according to a system called the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC). It was developed at the turn of the 20th century by Belgian lawyers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine.
The MSCA 2024 conference was announced in Toledo during the Spanish presidency in November 2023. At that time, the website www.msca2024.eu was launched with a countdown timer.
During the period from 1/1/2024 to 1/5/2024, there were nearly 7 600 visits to the homepage of the site and 991 visits to the ‘registration’ page.
The two social networks, Facebook and LinkedIn, continued to be updated—albeit less regularly and with more anecdotal information—until the submission of this final report.
Before that, we asked three graphic design agencies for various tasks related to the visual identity of the conference:
• creation of an original image that will be present(ed) throughout the conference (from the website to the various goodies)
• a website containing all practical information (programme, speakers, registrations, ...)
2. PROGRAMME
The conference took place over two days, including the Falling Walls Labs competition organized by the European Commission.
Invitations to the various speakers were sent out as early as September 2023 (with some confirmations already received in July).
The final version of the program was finalized on 12/04/2024.
As indicated in the CSA, the conference alternated:
• individual presentations (opening and closing speeches, keynote speeches, testimonies …)
• round tables and workshops:
• Falling Wall Labs
All participants of the poster session also received a certificate of their participation signed by representatives of the Belgian presidency and the European Commission.
The Falling Walls Lab competition received high praise, providing 15 MSCA fellows the opportunity to present their projects in three-minute pitches.
To best prepare for the conference, briefing notes were written and distributed to the moderators, panelists, and the moderator. Meetings were then organized (with or without the presence of SPW recherche) to create smooth sessions.
Interactions with participants (both on-site and online) were initiated through questionnaires managed by Slido.
As previously mentioned, a poster session was organized alongside the conference, and the final ranking is provided below.
Twenty applications were selected, ensuring a balance between gender and disciplines (19 candidates presented).
3. MEETING ROOM SET UP
The setup for the conference (technical installation, lighting, including room decoration such as roll-ups, photo call wall, plants, and the poster area) was carried out the day before the conference by all partners and their contractors.
This also included signage directing attendees to meeting rooms (amusingly named "Polonium," "Radium," etc.) and other locations (cloakrooms, restrooms).
It is worth noting that three chill-out spaces were arranged with lounge chairs featuring the conference logo. These arrangements were well-received.
4. SOCIAL ACTIVITIES
The programme included two social activities: a visit to the Mundaneum on the first evening with a networking dinner; and a visit to the “Rodin, a modern Renaissance” exhibition at the Mons Museum of Fine Arts on the afternoon of the second day.
These visits were unguided, but several people from the educational departments of these institutions were present.
The Mundaneum, sometimes known as the Paper Google, is one of 67 European museums to have been awarded the “European Heritage“ label and aimed to gather together all the world's knowledge and classify it according to a system called the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC). It was developed at the turn of the 20th century by Belgian lawyers Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine.