Panel @ NetSci25

“Science as a craft: Balancing career and skill progression”

Abstract:

A career in science is often defined by contradicting and overlapping demands. Good researchers need to balance tasks that require creativity and pragmatism, solitude and collaboration, and universality and specificity. This spectrum of scientific practices is characterized by skills that need to be developed over the span of a career, including practical skills such as scientific writing, scientific programming, scientific communication, but also social skills such as teaching, collaborating and collective problem solving and strategic skills such as choosing your collaborators and collaborations, choosing research questions and present those ideas convincingly to the scientific community and funding agencies as a promising direction.

Early-career researchers in particular often struggle to identify where they need to grow and how to divide their limited time and energy between these competing demands, especially under the constant pressure to publish. In the NetPlace panel at NetSci25 we aim to address these questions and we want to bring the experience and expertise of further advanced scientists to the more junior part of our community.

We want to specifically discuss the following questions:

1. What habits lead to long-term development and how to dedicate time to skill progression.
2. Is there a trade-off between self-development and scientific output? How do you approach it?
3. How to find/choose collaborations/collaborators? Trade-off between personal expertise and growth outside of one’s scientific comfort zone.
4. How to develop your research direction with an eye towards the funding landscape and getting postdocs/faculty positions.
5. How would you evaluate the employability of a junior researcher, if you are a member of a hiring committee?

🎤 Panelists

Andreia Sofia Teixeira

Network Science Institute, Northeastern University London

Maxime Lucas

Namur Institute for Complex systems and UCLouvain, Belgium

Alec Kirkley

Institute of Data Science and Department of Urban Planning and Design, University of Hongkong