Since its launch, the PUSHH ETN has made stable progress in delivering its activities with contributions from the entire consortium.
PUSHH provided international and intersectoral training to improve the ESRs’ knowledge, and prevention of unethical research practices of the past and present, including “helicopter research” and marginalisation of local researchers, in palaeontology, paleoanthropology and archaeology. To fulfil the PUSHH objectives, all the ESRs have received training in state-of-the-art analytical and bioinformatic technologies for the investigation of ancient proteins. The training programme also included workshops focusing on transferable skills, research management, entrepreneurship, ethics in palaeontology and palaeoanthropology, and scientific communication for the broad audience. The network-wide planned training activities have been specifically designed to enhance the expertise of the ESRs, and the collaborations in the network have given the ESRs the possibility to achieve a better and broader understanding of proteomics studies in the academic, industrial, and museum environment. The rich secondment plan gave all the fellows the possibility to see a different work environment within and outside the academic system. Since the very beginning of the project, the PUSHH consortium was characterised by a strong sense of community and collaboration. Starting from the very first few months of the ESRs’ projects, and culminating in the network of secondments, multiple opportunities were created for network-wide interaction and exposure to many different work environments, methodologies and professional mindsets. The involvement of partners in the private sector exposed the fellows to the mindset and the culture of the corporate environment. The interaction with colleagues from academic and cultural institutions from the countries of origin of the fossil material studied exposed the PUSHH fellows to the ethical requirements necessary to responsibly study cultural and biological heritage material originating from outside the EU and educated them to be aware and considerate about the needs and expectations of local museums and about their mission aiming at preserving cultural heritage for everybody. Some of the fellows had their secondments in the private sector and they had the opportunity to experience in person how research is structured and managed there.
As a consequence of the restrictions implemented to mitigate the spread of the COVID19 pandemics, most of the planned activities were deployed with minor delays. Despite these changes though, none of the PUSHH activities had to be completely cancelled and all the PUSHH project’s intended learning objectives were maintained. All the network-wide training activities were delivered:
Workshop 1: “Start-up phase of the doctorate”; host: UCPH and UCT
- module 1: “Start-up phase of the doctorate”
- module 2: “Academic writing”
- module 3: “[Social] media & public relations for science”
- module 4: “Ethics In Research”
Workshop 2: “Palaeoproteomics hands-on practical courses”; hosts: UBx and UCPH
- module 1: “Advanced mass spectrometry applied to cultural heritage Summer School”
- module 2: “Practical Palaeoproteomics Summer School”
Workshop 3: “MaxQuant Summer School”; host: MPG
Workshop 4: “Paleoanthropological and paleontological excavation and fieldwork”; host: CENIEH
Workshop 5: “Grant writing, peer-review and advanced project management skills”; host: UNIFI
Workshop 6: “Entrepreneurial skills”; host: UCPH
Workshop 7: “Introduction to University Pedagogy”; host: UCPH
