MID TERM WORKSHOP AND REVIEW - what happened
Saturday 29th Jan
CODENET WORKSHOP (agenda)
This workshop started with short presentations by each team giving an overview of recent progress and plans for the next year or so. This was rather an impressive event since the network is in a very productive phase and all teams had substantive new results to report. After lunch we discussed plans for meetings in the next year. In particular we formally decided that for this summer there should be: - An informal June Blagnac meeting for the post docs and other active participants, focused on results synthesis. During subsequent discussions we decided a suitable date for this would be 17-19th June (arrive 16th, depart 20th) and that each participant should be responsible for preparing/working on one joint ms. during the workshop. This workshop will be arranged by Patrizia Ziveri, Jan van Hinte and Jeremy Young.
- An extended session in September in Bremen - with a CODENET workshop (8-10 Sept arranged by Karl-Heinz Baumann) preceding the INA8 conference (11-15 Sept). We also decided that there should be a training session afternoon at the workshop focused on geological techniques (to be arranged by Kalle and Patrizia). We then discussed suitable topics for strong thematic sessions at the INA meting to allow good representation of the CODENET research combined with presentations on complimentary subjects by our colleagues outside the network These suggestions have been submitted to the INA8 organising committee.
special sessions on Lisbon Cruise, identification of priorities for the next year.
Further discussions covered ideas for future research, synthesis of the CODENET 2 cruise results, and arrangements for the formal review meeting.
Sunday 30th Jan
FORMAL MID TERM REVIEW MEETING (participants and programme)
This review was carried out by Prof. Dorothy Guy Ohlsen (Stockholm), Manuela Soares (head of the TMR network activity) and Jane Shiel (our regular EU contact). The first two thirds of the meeting consisted of presentations by the CODENET participants - Jan van Hinte on the origins an context of CODENET; Jeremy Young (as co-ordinator) on development of the project; Scientists in Chief on the roes of their teams; YVRs (PostDocs & Markus) on their research in CODENT and its value for their career development. The final third consisted of sessions by the assessors questing fist the YVRs then the scientists in chief on how CODENET was performing relative to its ambitions. These were tough sessions with serious probing of whether we were delivering on our scientific and training objectives. Nonetheless,t he final assessments seemed flatteringly positive. In particular Prof. Guy-Ohlsen, summarised the network in terms of 4 "F"s
- FUNDAMENTALS - she was impressed by the basic plan for the project in terms of both scientific objectives and organisation (e.g. assignment of specific roles to teams).
- FLEXIBILITY - she commented on our ability to exploit opportunities, such as the life-cycle research and cruisework openings, and to encourage other people to join in.
- FRIENDSHIP - not surprisingly we had managed to show that the project is doing very well in this respect.
- FUTURE - she reckoned we had one.
To balance this Jan asked for some critiscism. It was suggested then that we should concentrate more effort over the next phase of the project on: - Result publication - the publication rate to date has been reasonable but impressive, we need to make sure that the large volume of results are rapidly translated into publication output.
- Career development - as the YVRs come toward the end of their appointments they and the senor scientists need to take care of their future careers, and provide relevant training.
Sadly the assessors left us after the meeting, but this did not stop us from enjoying the evening, with a boat trip down the Thames
Monday 31st Jan
TRAINING SESSION - developing and funding research projects and careers.
10.45 Introduction - Jeremy Young
11.00 American science career paths a proxy for Europe? - Heather Stoll (U. Oviedo)
11.45 Funding Science, EU (& UK) opportunities. - Vanessa Pike (NHM - Science Marketing officer)
12.45 Assignment of research proposal examples for analysis
13.00 Lunch + analysis of research proposal examples
14.15 Discussion of research proposal examples
15.00 Close
Despite hangovers, this was generally felt to have been a very valuable exercise, the talks were highly appreciated and the training exercise was a good way of focusing on what made a successful proposal. More generally the session was, I hope, a good way of starting the process of thinking about life after CODENET.
Web links - from Vanessa's talk
- FP5 the home page for the current EU funding round.
- Bioresource the LSF at the NHM (funds short visits).
- ESF - the European Science Foundation
- The British Council funds international research collaborations via numerous bilateral arrangements.
- The Royal Society funds postdoctoral fellowships and international exchanges (good web site with links to most national centres)
- NATO - it may sound strange but NATO does have various science funding schemes.
Also
- PRF The Petroleum Research Fund - a suggestion of Heather's.
- Earthworks major site for geoscience jobs
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