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The "kick-off" meeting of the new EC FP6 Analytical Glow Discharge Network "GLADNET" was held in Taormina, Sicily, on 18th Feb. 2007. We choose this location for our first GLADNET meeting not only because Taormina is a marvellous spot and belongs certainly to the oldest European cities, but many of the GLADNET participants had planned to attend the Winter Plasma Spectrochemistry Conference starting the same day in Taormina. Additionally the 6th month meeting of the European STREP project EMDPA on Elemental and Molecular Depth Profile Analysis was held in Catania just one day prior to the GLDANET kick-off meeting, giving even more GLADNET members reason to travel to Sicily.
During a major part of the kick-off meeting administrative and financial issues related to a Research Training Networks were presented by the network coordinator Johann Michler and discussed by the assembly. It is important to understand that the financial support granted to a Research Training Network as GLADNET by the European Commission within the Marie Curie Mobility Actions, is mainly dedicated to the researchers trained by the network. The remaining 35% of the budget must be used to cover the costs of teaching activities, travel expenses, network management etc. Some money is also available to help financing the research of the employed researchers.
Volker Hoffmann, the GLADNET recruitment manager reported first replies to our job announcements on the internet. However, only a few days after the official start of the GLADNET programme it was still rather early to draw any conclusion. In order to further the push our recruitment activities, we decided to make a recruitment poster to be largely distributed by the GLADNET participants.
Edward Steers, the GLADNET training manager, outlined the training programme. A training course will be held approximately every 6-month at different locations. When ever possible these courses will be linked to an international conference or "summer" school. The attendance to the GLADNET courses is compulsory for the ESR s and ERs employed within the network. Edward invited other researchers from the network to participate. The first workshop which is going be held in September 2007 in Brussels and Antwerp, together with the ECASIA Conference. More details on this first workshop and its link with ECASIA and the meeting of the European Working group for Glow discharge will be available on this page soon.
A Mentor from another establishment will be appointed for each ESR and ER. The choice is to be agreed by the ESR/ER, the supervisor and the training manager. The researchar and the mentor should consult at meetings and/or by arrangement. It is the role mentor to advise the researcher on his career development plan.
A career development plan (CDP) will be established for each ER and ESR. The CDP will be regularly up-dated by the researcher in collaboration with the supervisor and the mentor.
Tamara Appel, the intellectual property right manager, briefly outlined the needs for protection of intellectual property within the network and the need of openly exchanging experience to the benefit of the trained researchers. A consortium agreement, setting the rules for collaboration with in the network is being elaborated and submitted to each partner.
Nathalie Nelis, a human resources consultant from Atout & Progrès in Paris, volunteered to present the activities of the French Association Bernard Gregory. ABG’s main objective is to improve the integration of PhD researchers in the society, particularly in the private industry. Each year many more students obtain a PhD then research posts with public funding are made available. It appears therefore crucial to prepare students and young researchers to integrate private industry. This implies training that is not exclusively focussed on acquiring academic knowledge but includes the development of skills needed in an industrial environment. The required skills certainly include project-management, inter-cultural communication and other rather fashionable terms. However, reporting from her own work with French PhD students, Nathalie stressed the importance of learning "responsibility". Students having learnt to be the driving force of their own career development, developing clear ideas of what they want and what they don’t want, usually have very little trouble integrating the real world, once the PhD is passed.
The work package leaders, Volker Hoffmann, Edward Steers, Annemie Borgaerts, Thomas Nelis and Zoltan Donko also presented the content of each work package. This more technical part was certainly enjoyed by most participants, eager to start the actual research work. You will find the information given during the presentations in the scientific programme part of this web-site.
At the end of the kick off meeting the general assembly elected the members of the training and recruitment committees:
Training committee, assisting the training manager Edward Steers:
Johann Michler, Rosario Pereira, Zdenek Weiss, Cornel Venzago;
Recruitment committee assisting the recruitment manager Volker Hoffmann:
Johann Michler, Tamara Appel, Annemie Bogaerts, Katrin Fuhrer, Edward Steers
Finally the GLADNET logo was selected.
Download the agenda of the GLADNET kick-off meeting!
