Research is crucial to successfully addressing the challenges emerging from pursuing more inclusive, innovative and secure societies. Within the framework of these societal challenges, technological development –though necessary- is not enough to guarantee social change and innovation. Yet, we still know very little about these innovation processes in social contexts, what institutional conditions are key, the role of culture and values in their development, and why this happens in some countries more easily than in others. The point is to shift from “science in society” to “science for society”. This has to do directly with the education of Early Career Researchers (ECRs), particularly PhD students and post-PhD researchers, who in recent years have experienced an increase in their responsibility and need for transversality and applicability of their results. This is also in line with the European policies concerning the training and promotion of new generations of researchers – of which the numbers are increasing. These concerns compel us to develop our proposal around two nuclear goals: • To reconceptualize the role of ECRs in order to enable them to successfully face current societal challenges and establish satisfactory careers. • To enhance the development of ECRs’ identities and careers through training. SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES: 1. To design, create and assess interactive on-line research-based resources to help ECRs (PhD students and post-doc) to face research challenges and strategies for developing resilience and regulating emotions. 2. To develop, validate and set up digital tools that contribute to develop ECR identity and career trajectories through effective participation in the professional and scientific communities of reference. 3. To raise awareness within the European scientific community of the importance of researcher identity and career development. 4. To showcase and disseminate proven methodologies, tools and practices for ECR to successfully address challenges faced in advancing their careers. The RID-SSISS addresses the following target groups: ECRs across disciplines, Higher Education institutions and educational stakeholders (doctoral school directors, graduate program directors, supervisors within and outside academia), and Research funding agencies and policy makers. Regarding results, RID-SSISS will create not only a training on-line platform but also a social networking space, in the process of becoming the first European community designed for ECRs in Europe. Through this social interactive platform "A researcher like me", the exchange of best practices and a rapid replication of best cases will be promoted. The platform will be complemented and connected to a complete set of interactive tools also launched by the project (Android and iOS mobile apps, twitter and blogs). Outputs of the project will also consist of a set of validated training courses, workshops and interactive questionnaires that will provide ECRs with the unique opportunity to develop effective strategies to negotiate their research careers. Institutions and stakeholders will be integrated into the process of validation (design and piloting) and implementation of the training outputs to make effective changes at social, institutional and work-condition levels. These materials will contribute to ECRs gaining the following competencies: - Most suitable strategies to manage innovative scientific communication addressed to different audiences. This implies participants being able to master not only scientific writing (journals, conferences, reports and reviews, grant applications), but also alternative genres to disseminate research (blogs, wikis, websites) and networking (social and professional platforms and consortia). -Resources to grow as independent researchers looking for funding their own projects; develop and consolidate new research profiles, looking for research ethics, sustainability and equity; and negotiate their career trajectories by analysing their potential and real affordances and limitations according to international job market possibilities. Such researchers might contribute to substantial changes in European research in terms of developing interdisciplinary projects required to face societal challenges. -Knowledge and strategies to appropriately balance work demands with personal life since research has shown this is a competence, which has been overlooked in European countries, in which junior researchers feel unable to develop their research careers along with a satisfactory personal life. Results of the project will also be published in two booklets (including the explanation of the model and the guide for innovative ECRs training -GRED), as well as in reports of the associate partners (LERU and EURODOC reports, and an EARLI newsletter), and scientific journals.
The Researcher Identity Development: Strengthening Science in Society Strategies (RID-SSISS) project addressed three intertwined objectives: a) To design, create and assess interactive on-line research-based resources to help ECRs (PhD students and post-doc) to face research challenges and strategies for developing resilience and regulating emotions; b) To develop, validate and set up digital tools that contribute to developing ECR identity and career trajectories through effective participation in the professional and scientific communities of reference; and, c) To showcase and disseminate proven methodologies, tools and practices for ECR to successfully address challenges faced in advancing their careers. All the activities contributed to the ultimate goal of raising awareness within the European scientific community of the importance of researcher identity and career development. Specific outputs of the RIDS-SSISS project consist of a set of resources addressed to different target groups and covering the variety of objectives aforementioned. The first group of resources aims at helping educational institutions and early career researcher -ECR- training units (e.g. Universities, doctoral schools, educational administrators and policymakers) to rethink their training proposals and approaches to equip not only early career researchers but also experienced and consolidated researchers with the competencies for developing Responsible Research and Innovation in cross-disciplinary and cross-sectional teams. These resources focus on transversal competencies such as research communication, equity and justice, ethics, personal development and resilience and wellbeing for researchers working inside and outside academia. A total of 7.537 participants have benefited from those resources through workshops, seminars and courses developed in the partner universities and other associated institutions. Among those participants, 5.350 were early career researchers (PhD students or postdocs) and 2.184 consolidated researchers, responsible for training units or doctoral policymakers. The RID-SSISS project's resources are open access (https://www.researcher-identity.com/erasmusproject), and most of them are also integrated into one of the project’s outputs, the interactive platform: “Researchers like Me” ( https://researchers-like-me.com/). This interactive site for researchers is the first open-access social community for early career researchers to improve their activity and develop as researchers, gathering 988 active users at the end of the project. The interactive platform allows members to assess their competencies and set objectives for their development as researchers, find help in areas where improvement is required, discuss thematic issues, develop resilience and share a wide range of diverse tools. The second group of resources are targeted to researchers in the field. We created and offered practitioners and researcher community four validated cross-cultural and multilingual questionnaires to explore doctoral and postdoctoral experiences and a manual for using and interpreting them in different contexts. A protocol for multimodal interviews is also available on the project website. These instruments have been disseminated through scientific papers and conferences. A total of 57 scientific articles, 23 books and book chapters, 62 conference contributions and 143 workshops and seminars have been produced during the project, most of them accessible on an open regime basis on the project website. Finally, the project has established stable relationships with regional and national funding agencies and relevant stakeholders to move forward towards the development of early-career researcher European profile able of generating interdisciplinary and innovative projects required to face societal challenges in cross-sectional contexts