Our Centre was pleased to hold its first professional development camp for eight early career researchers (ECRs) last week in Canberra (13-15 February).
The camps, part of our Balanced Researcher Program, are designed to build skills in leadership, team building, communication and other specific skills to support ECRs to complete their research work and be prepared for future career progression in and out of the academic arena.
The camp hosted six PhD candidates (from University of Canberra, University of Adelaide and La Trobe and Murdoch Universities) and two post-doctoral research fellows (from CSIRO) who are all working on various projects within the Centre’s portfolio.
As part of the first camp, the participants undertook a two- and half-day workshop led by Bob Marshall from Knowledge Teams Internationals who taught skills in team building and understanding emotional intelligences and personality and work styles. As part of the first day, Dr Ian McDonald, the Centre’s Communication Manager, ran a science communication session where participants went through the process of developing briefing notes and key messages for media interviews.
Dr Tony Buckmaster, the Centre’s Balanced Researcher Program leader said the BRP participants walked away with new skills and friendships
“These camps are a great way of getting our early career researchers from multiple disciplines to interact together and start forming networks and collaborations that will last well beyond the end of their current research projects”.
The next BRP camp will be held towards the end of 2020 and will focus on developing grant writing skills.
You can learn more about the program via https://invasives.com.au/research/balanced-researcher-program/