Early Career Researchers Workshop
Informatics Europe aims to nurture talent and cultivate a diverse pool of future leaders with a broad understanding of the discipline. As part of this effort, we organise again at ECSS 2024 the "Professional Development Workshop for Early Career Researchers" on Monday, 28 October. The workshop will be chaired by Dimka Karastoyanova, University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and Irene Vanderfeesten, KU Leuven (Belgium).
This year’s workshop will focus on mentoring and support for PhD Students and PostDocs on their paths to academic careers. The workshop program will cover subjects like what opportunities there are for a career in academia and what steps are necessary to establish a sustainable career path through several presentations on these topics. We will also give the floor to PhDs who recently completed successful PhD projects to share insights and experiences about their paths. Furthermore, selected ongoing PhD student projects will be presented during the Doctoral Symposium (DS), where a panel of senior researchers will provide feedback and guidance, as well as in individual mentoring sessions to presenters. Last but not least, participants will get a chance to exchange insights with their peers and further develop their support network.
Accepted papers, selected by a peer-review process based on the DS paper submission, will be presented in form of posters at the poster session, to be held during the closing day cocktail event with all ECSS participants. A selection of these accepted papers will also be invited for in-person presentation during the DS session of this workshop at ECSS 2024. Accepted papers will also be considered for publication in the post-proceedings.
Important Dates
- Paper submission deadline: 21 Jul
- Notification of acceptance to Poster Session and/or Doctoral Symposium: 9 Sep
- Camera ready paper: 10 Nov
Workshop Rundown
11:00 - 11:05 Welcome and Introduction
11:05 - 12:30 Session 1: Navigating a Research Career in Academia
Presentations dedicated to insights that will support PhD Students and Postdocs in identifying the best practices in obtaining the skills, networks and tools to navigate the different stages of their career development – from a PhD position, through post-doctoral research to an assistant professor position.
Participants will enjoy presentations on various topics.
For example,
- How to prepare for an academic career?
- What are the career opportunities in academia?
- What skills are required?
- What should early career researchers know to find the most suitable PostDoc and Assistant professor position?
- What actions support your next career step?
- What is the role of a mentor and how to select one?
Details of the presenters will follow.
12:30 - 14:00 Lunch
14:00 -16:00 Session 2: ECSS Doctoral Symposium
The Doctoral Symposium (DS) is a forum of exchange organized to encourage informatics PhD students to present their early work and exchange ideas with other researchers in an interdisciplinary discussion. Senior researchers will provide feedback on the work and advice on organizing and managing research projects. The DS is also a place to establish a social network with the peers from different fields of informatics research. In addition, there will be an opportunity to engage with industry participants interested in this domain.
We encourage submissions from PhD students at an early stage of their research project, i.e., typically in their first or second year. The choice of research methodology depends on the informatics field that is at the focus of the PhD project and using a variety of research methodologies from other fields, including design and behavioural science methodologies, is encouraged.
A submission to the DS should clearly describe the motivation, goals, expected results and the research approach taken. Participants will be expected to actively discuss their work by reading each other's work prior to the Symposium, giving a presentation at the Symposium, debating together, and listening to senior researchers' feedback.
Submission Guidelines (applicable to Poster Session)
To participate at the Doctoral Symposium, students should submit a paper of 6 pages (including references) that should cover the following aspects:
- The context and goal of the research;
- The scientific problem addressed in the PhD project. This problem must be justified or substantiated by means of observations from practice, case studies, observations from the business practice, and can be further refined in terms of research questions and hypotheses;
- Earlier works that have addressed the same or similar problems. In particular, explanations why the problem is not yet solved (i.e. limitations, open issues and controversies) should be underlined;
- The proposed approach and the research methodology followed to address the problem at hand;
- The expected results, and any result that has already been obtained so far;
- A plan for the evaluation/validation of results;
- Scientific and/or Societal impact expected.
- Papers should be written in English, following Springer LNBIP style - including all text, references, appendices, and figures.
- For formatting instructions and templates, see the Springer webpage. All submissions must be made in PDF format.
Link to submission platform will follow soon.
Selection Process
Papers will be evaluated by at least three members of the Doctoral Symposium Committee using the following criteria:
- technical quality, clarity, soundness, precision, novelty and adequacy of the problem statement, related work, self-contained and feasible method description, realistic expected results and sensible evaluation plan.
- overall quality.
Please note that all accepted Doctoral Symposium papers will be invited to publish their work in post proceedings (more details to be announced soon) and will be accepted for in-person presentation in the ECSS 2024 poster session. The best papers will be invited for in-person presentation during the Doctoral Symposium session of the ECR Workshop at ECSS 2024.
16:00 - 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 - 18:00 Session 3: What makes a PhD Project a Success?
Several presentations will be given by recent PhD graduates, who will share their insights and experience about their PhD projects, what kind of support they received from their supervisors, organization, support activities, and peer network, and what helped them navigate through the ups and downs of a PhD trajectory. At the end of the session, a plenary discussion with the presenters will take place.
19:00 - 22:00 Welcome Cocktail including the Early Career Researchers Poster Session
