The Early Career Researchers’ Conference was a step in a different direction for our conferences, and allowed the spotlight to be placed on career development in cancer research and the problems faced by scientists at the start of their careers. The two day event was praised for its unique discussion topics and range of networking opportunities.
“The conference was informative, versatile and interactive.”
The results of the participant feedback survey for the Early Career Researchers’ Conference highlight the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received across the board. 99.49% of the survey’s 195 respondents said that they would recommend EACR virtual conferences to a colleague after this event, and 100% said that they would be interested in similar career development based conferences in the future, highlighting the appetite amongst junior researchers for more events of this kind in the future.
In their own words, below are some of the nice things participants had to say about the conference:
“Very useful discussions and insights into important topics such as grants and publications and alternative career options.”
“Really broad topics covered, including careers outside of science. [There was] opportunity to talk with senior leaders, industry and funders. Great for planning and thinking about career”
“There are not many events of this kind and I think it was a great opportunity to share views and get orientation about career development.”
“During the session, I learned a lot, particularly on how to interact more effectively with colleagues. This type of webinar is not often available to the scientific community. I truly hope that a great amount of people will attend this type of conference in future so that we can educate everyone, not just young researchers like myself.”
“The conference was the most useful I have been to. The audience asked hard and sometimes awkward questions e.g. how to deal with a difficult PI, and the speakers answered them calmly and honestly.”
“Excellent event! At the beginning when I registered, I expected it to be a typical scientific conference where young researchers will present their work. However, it was different, pleasant surprise! It was better to talk about peer review, resilience, career paths and other topics that are extremely important, but not discussed enough.”
“The round table session has provided great interaction opportunities…”
There was also a change of style for the networking opportunities, with a change in platform from Gather to Zoom. The switch helped to facilitate discussion between participants and speakers by placing them in to breakout rooms. In the feedback survey one attendee described the Zoom Round Table Session as “the most significant highlight”, and said “getting to informally talk to people to which I would never have had a chance to pose questions under normal circumstances was surreal and we all learned a lot and were able to be free with our questions.”
This was echoed by many of the participants with another saying her standout moment was “The informative roundtable discussion and the journey shared by the EACR president how she became the PI. Most importantly, she also shared the details of what she looks into the potential PI candidate CVs, how one can achieve those qualities to become a successful PI in the future”.
#eacrEarlyCareerConference on Twitter
As always, we used the conference hashtag to help attendees to interact on social media. Here are some highlights from Twitter:
Early this week I had the opportunity to listen to amazing speakers at #eacrEarlyCareerConference. I am still impacted and thinking about Dr. Chapin Rodriguez talk on career path
— JeanyDelafiori (@jeanydelafiori) July 9, 2021
Excited to be attending the first @EACRnews #eacrEarlyCareerConference with #EACRvirtualevents today & tomorrow. A great programme – thank you for launching this! 👏
— Susan Heavey (@susan_heavey) July 6, 2021
The #eacrEarlyCareerConference is ON and on FIRE! @EACRnews @ASEICAnews @CICbioGUNE https://t.co/RWfssRryDY
— ArkaitzCarracedoLAB (@ArkaitzLab) July 6, 2021
Future Virtual Events
At the beginning of next month, Goodbye Flat Biology will be making its return on the 04 October 2021 following its successful 2019 edition in Berlin. On 26-27 October, we will be debuting AI in Cancer Diagnostics, which will focus on the role Artificial Intelligence will have on the future of cancer diagnostics and clinical decision-making. To round out the year, we have the EACR-AstraZeneca Virtual Conference ‘Drug Tolerant Persister Cells’ on 07 – 08 December.
The Early Career Researcher’s Conference will return virtually next year, 26-27 April.
