From the beginning of the IberusTalent programme in September 2018, the first 24-month period has been committed to the recruitment of talented early stage researchers to the Ebro Valley. To that end, two calls were launched in 2018 and 2019 respectively, which were open for 3 months to candidates applying for any of the research lines offered in the fields of Agrofood and Nutrition and Health Technologies. In order to increase the applicant’s choices, candidates were given the opportunity to apply for multiple research lines and to participate in more than one selection process.
In total numbers, over 600 applications were received counting the first and second call results by applicants coming from 61 different countries worldwide. The selection process involved more than 200 experts, some from renowned international organisations across the world. Eventually, the selected candidates come from 21 different nationalities and were in perfect gender balance. All in all, the recruitment of these early stage researchers has made a substantial impact on the international PhD community of the Campus Iberus universities.
Work has been carried out on different activities contributing to enhance the researcher’s career opportunities and their impact on the scientific community and the overall society. Most of the researchers recruited in the first call (14 out of 16) have defended their PhD, with 20 PhD theses being defended until now, with some of them still ongoing.
ESRs have been trained in both research and transferable skills and had either an industrial mentor or a working collaboration with non-academic R&I actors to ensure a relevant exposure to other sectors. Most were part of the Campus Iberus Research Clusters, which are interdisciplinary teams of researchers from the four universities interconnected with regional R&I drivers to work collaboratively on strategic areas. Secondments and short stays were carried out at the facilities of key regional collaborators in the Ebro Valley and/or at the national or international level, even the preliminary restrictions due to COVID-19.
Multiple scientific outputs were generated from the programme. The Iberus Talent researchers took part in national and international conferences, workshops or gatherings. Additionally, some have participated in outreach events to communicate their projects to the society. Furthermore, the programme’s website www.iberustalent.com was redesigned to show their public profiles, including biosketches connected to their professional networks, and their PhD projects and results in brief.
