Identifying examples of best practice regarding Early Stage Researchers (ESR) mobility through a web-based survey.

Transcription

1 Eurodoc report International Mobility WG (February-24) Identifying examples of best practice regarding Early Stage Researchers (ESR) mobility through a web-based survey. Rosella Bargiacchi 1, Sandra Bohlinger 1, Clara Casado 1, Vera Domigues 1, Peter Kerey 1, Nicolas Legrand 1, Daniel Mietchen 1, Marilyn Shanks 1, Inese Sviestina 1 and Toni Gabaldón 1,2. 1. International Mobility Workgroup. EURODOC (The Council for Early Stage Researchers in Europe), ( First nine authornames in alphabetical order. 2. Workgroup coordinator, to whom correspondence should be addressed. (jagabald@uv.es) Introduction International mobility is an important issue during the research career, especially when considering career at an early stage. Providing mobility to Early Stage Researchers (ESR) may help them to learn new techniques in foreign groups, to experience different research environments and to establish networks within the scientific community. ESR often face many difficulties when planning a short or a long-term internship in a different country. These difficulties are very diverse and range from the lack of interest of the supervisor to bureaucracy problems. These burdens include the lack of information, but also economical, social, gender-related, cultural and many other issues. These factors act as barriers to mobility that transform mobility into a bad experience for the researcher or persuade him or her to be mobile. Moreover, as some of these barriers have a more pronounced effect on certain groups of researchers (researchers with a low salary, women, researchers with a family, researchers from certain countries or areas of research) they can constitute a source of discrimination as well. With the aim of promoting ESR mobility and improving the conditions by which mobility is provided to them, Eurodoc (1), Marie Curie Fellowship Association (MCFA) (2), Euroscience (3) and Pi-Net (4) have started a joint project to identify and spread good practices regarding ESR mobility. Within this frame Eurodoc initiated a web-based survey for ESR in which they were asked to evaluate research centres and institutions providing funds for mobility according to how they performed in various aspects, which were to be considered important for mobility from the point of view of ESR. This survey had the final aim of identifying institutions that could serve as examples of good practice. The items considered range from the existence of a web page of the institution providing crucial information in English to the handling of the situation when the mobile researcher has a family. Here Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

2 we present the results from this survey that provide a valuable insight into the weak and strong points of the 146 research institutions and 28 funding institutions evaluated. An interesting result of this survey is the identification of several institutions performing well in all evaluated aspects that could serve as examples of best practices. Methodology. Discussions on the topics to be included in the questionnaire were first carried out at the International Mobility workshop organized at the EURODOC23 conference in February 23 (5) and then continued through the mailing-list forum of the International Mobility workgroup. Up to 2 representatives and volunteers from different young researchers associations around Europe participated in these discussions. The questionnaire was divided into two sections aiming to evaluate Research Institutions (RI) and Institutions providing funds for mobility (FI) respectively. The questionnaire was implemented in HTML format and posted in Eurodoc s website to allow its on-line use and to facilitate the retrieval of the data. The questionnaire was available on-line from 1 st November 23 to 31 st January 24. Data were retrieved and processed using custom-made python scripts in a Linux workstation. Results and Discussion. ESR participating in the International Mobility Workgroup discussions (see Methodology) agreed on a set of relevant issues for interrogating International Mobility practices of Research Institutions and Institutions providing funds for mobility. The final questionnaire, presented in the annexes, was not intended to provide an exhaustive recapitulation of all aspects affecting mobility. The intention was rather to comprise in a short questionnaire most of the issues that, from the point of view of ESR themselves, were considered either more common or more important when experiencing international mobility. It was also agreed that this was the very first step in an on-going process that will ultimately allow us to establish guidelines for good practice from the ESR point of view. In this sense the questionnaire was not only a tool to identify candidate institutions for good practice but also a way to improve our understanding of the factors that affect ESR mobility. The addressed issues were grouped into four categories: Availability of information, Integration of incoming researchers (only for RI), Health and social security aspects (only for FI) and Promotion of mobility. Each of these categories addresses very different aspects that affect ESR mobility in different ways. The questionnaire was preceded by general inquires about the institution (location, address) and a contact address for the person filling in the questionnaire. A space for comments was left at the end of the form and inquiries were specifically encouraged to provide suggestions to further improve the questionnaire and to identify examples of good practice. 228 completed forms were received during the 3-months period in which the survey was available on-line, of these 18 correspond to Research Institutions and 48 to Institutions providing funds for mobility. Entries were processed semi-automatically to filter institutions from non-european countries (this entries were kept for later use) and to merge separate entries for the same institution. A total of 146 Research Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

3 Institutions and 28 Institutions providing funds for mobility from 18 European countries were evaluated. Before we proceed with the analyses of these data it must be noted that the amount of data might be too scarce, most notably in the case of FI, for being representative of the actual distribution of the European Institutions. The bias towards certain countries should also be taken into account when interpreting the results, not surprisingly countries with an ESR association that is part of Eurodoc are more represented. Considering the above-mentioned remarks we considered the analyses of the data to be important for getting a preliminary overview of some trends regarding ESR mobility. 1) Research Institutions. 1.1) General overview. Figure 1 summarizes the results obtained for Research Institutions. Compact distributions are only found in countries with less than 4 entries and should not be considered as being representative. For the rest both variations within and between countries are considerably high, indicating that institutions are very heterogeneous regarding the treatment of ESR mobility. Among the countries with more than 5 entries we can observe a tendency towards better average levels in countries such as 1 8 score Denmark (1) United Kingdom (16) Germany (25) Sweeden (4) Netherlans (11) Hungary (3) Switzerland (2) Lithuania (5) Slovenia (1) Country Austria (2) France (14) Italy (9) Greece (3) Ireland (3) Spain (3) Latvia (2) Portugal (9) Figure 1: General overview for Research Institutions results. Numbers in brackets indicate the amount of RI evaluated for each country. The distribution of these entries is indicated by the Maximum and Minimum observed scores and a box spanning one standard deviation around the mean (middle of the box). United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, while Portugal, Spain or Italy tend to have lower scores; the possible correlation of this tendency with the level of R+D expenditures of these countries deserves a deeper investigation. Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

4 1.2) Identification of candidates for good practice. Figure 2 summarizes the distribution of all evaluated research institutions. In red are indicated the classes selected as putative 3 examples of good practices. These classes correspond to 8 entries that obtained a score 1 25 or higher, that is, institutions that fulfilled all 2 requirements (two top institutions in the table) or all but one. Together they represent the top 5,5% 15 of the sample distribution. 4 and 3 of these 1 institutions are from Germany and United Kingdom, two of the most represented countries 5 in our data. The other example corresponds to a research centre from a Lithuanian university. frequency score Figure 2: Score distribution for all evaluated Research Institutions, in red are the classes selected as candidates for good practice. Distribution is fitted by a third order curve. Table 1. RI candidates for good practice. Institution city country Web site University of Glasgow Glasgow UK European Molecular Biology Laboratory Heidelberg Germany University of Durham Durham UK Cambridge University Cambridge UK Research Centre For Microsystems and Kaunas Lithuania Nanotechnology (Tech. Univ. Kaunas) University of Göttingen Göttingen Germany ww.htm Hanse-Wissenschaftkolleg Delmenhorst Germany Max-Delbrück-Center Berlin Germany 1.3) Analysis by category. When having a look at how each of the different categories of the questionnaire performed we obtained the distribution showed in figure 4. A remarkable result is that there is no single characteristic that is fully accomplished by all evaluated institutions. A requirement that could be considered as simple and easy to achieve such as having a web-page were information could be found in English (category 6.1) is not accomplished by a 22% of the institutions, this percentage increases to 25% when not considering British institutions (for which English is the first language). Most of the categories are correctly performed by less than the 5% of the institutions and the accomplishment of two of the categories (7.3 and 7.4) can be considered as residual with only 13% and 1% of the institutions respectively performing well. Interestingly these categories correspond to issues related with children and family (see annex) and Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

5 the results could be indicating an overall lack of concern of the research institutions regarding these aspects of mobility. Though not exclusively, these issues are mostly affecting young women and the lack of concern towards them could in turn favour a gender imbalance regarding mobility of young researchers. % of institutions category Figure 4: For each questionnaire s category a bar represents the percentage of evaluated Research Institutions that accomplish the specified requirements. 2) Institutions providing funds for mobility. 2.1) General overview. Figure 5 presents a general overview of the collected data for Institutions providing funds for mobility. With only two countries (Germany and Spain) having more than 5 entries it is hard to draw any reliable conclusion. The reduced scope of the collected data for funding institutions is also exemplified by the lack of entries from wellknown European-wide funding institutions like Marie Curie or the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). All this prevents us for making any further conclusions regarding funding institutions apart from selecting a few possible examples of good practice Score Germany (6) Austria (1) Portugal (4) Greece (1) United Kingdom (3) Spain (7) France (3) Slovenia (1) Italy (2) Belgium (1) Hungary (1) Country Figure 5: General overview for Research Institutions results. Numbers in brackets indicate the amount of RI evaluated for each country. The distribution of these entries is indicated by the Maximum and Minimum observed scores and a box spanning one standard deviation around the mean (middle of the box). Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

6 2.2 Identification of candidates for good practice. frequency Figure 6 summarizes the frequency distribution for the funding institutions, in red is indicated the class containing the selected examples of good practice. The two selected examples (see table 2) represent the top 7% of the sample distribution and correspond to institutions accomplishing all eight requested characteristics. All selected examples are from Germany score Figure 6: Score distribution for all evaluated Research Institutions, in red are the classes selected as candidates for good practice. Distribution is fitted by a third order curve (line). Table 2. FI Candidates for good practice. Institution city country Web site Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes Bonn Germany Heinrich-Boel-Stiftung Berlin Germany Distribution by category As mentioned above the scarcity of data prevent us from extracting any conclusion from the sample distribution. Nevertheless it is remarkable that category 6.4 also related to the ESR family status is accomplished by only a 15% of the evaluated institutions. % Institutio ns category Figure 7: For each questionnaire s category a bar represents the percentage of evaluated Research Institutions that accomplish the specified i Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

7 Concluding remarks. The present analysis has revealed several weak points that are common to most of the studied institutions. This is likely to represent the overall situation in Europe and indicates a general lack of consideration for issues related to the family status of the researchers. Moreover, not a single aspect is properly accomplished by all institutions. Even the apparently simple service of having a web site with the necessary information in English is not fulfilled by the 2% of the institutions. The identification of examples of best practice regarding mobility of ESR is a complex task. This study should be considered as an early step towards a better understanding of how could the mobility of ESR be improved. The selected institutions represent the best performers of the analysed sample and should not be considered in an absolute manner. A closer inspection of these examples might reveal new aspects that were not considered in the questionnaire. More interestingly these examples might provide clues of how to tackle certain mobility issues that are generally not properly treated. A proper dissemination of the good practices might stimulate the adoption of these by other institutions, hence improving the mobility conditions for ESR. A deeper analysis of the selected cases, an improvement of the questionnaire and the elaboration of a set of guidelines for best practices are among the future prospects of our workgroup. Acknowledgements We wish to thank all ESR that kindly completed the questionnaire and members of Eurodoc, MCFA, Euroscience and Pi-Net for fruitful discussions on international mobility. Raoul Tan provided useful comments and critically reviewed the manuscript. References Marie Curie Fellowship Association ( 3- Euroscience. ( 4- Pi-Net. Post-graduate Network. ( 5- EURODOC-23. Annual Eurodoc conference held in Soest (The Netherlands) in February 23. Annex A) Questionnaire for Research Institutions. 1. Select a country for this research institution: 2. In which city is this institution situated? (write 'several' if it is based in more than one city) 3. Name of the institution: 4. Web address of the institution (or alternatively the contact address) 5. Your address Availability of relevant information: 6.1) The Institute has a website, and at least some pages are explicitly thought for foreigners and written in at least one foreign language (including English). 6.2) Information about staff, recent publications and research in progress is available in English. Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup

8 6.3) The Institution has an office dealing exclusively with consultancy to incoming and outgoing researchers. Such an office should gather information about funding schemes, mobility opportunities, information about host institutions abroad, administrative issues related to each foreign host country, and so on. Some staff members of this office are able to speak English. Small-sized institutions could gather to share a single office dealing with mobility issues of all of them. 7. Integration of incoming Early Stage Researchers: 7.1) The Institution offers effective help in finding an accommodation to be ready at the time of arrival. 7.2) Family status is taken into account (e.g. having a partner, children) for finding suitable accommodation. 7.3) Suitable housing and day-care services for children are provided for researchers with children coming from abroad. 7.4) For researchers coming with their partner, the institution facilitates information and helps the partner to find a suitable position at a reasonable distance. 7.5) For researchers staying for periods longer than one year, language courses are provided and proper arrangements should be thought of also for their families. 7.6) The institution stimulates participation to social events such as introductory drinks or gatherings, and recommends the departments and institutes to organize small social events with regular intervals. 8. Promoting mobility: 8.1) The research institution has a specific budget dedicated to mobility of its Early Stage Researchers, e.g. for congress abroad, short periods of work at another institution, skill transfer training, ) The importance of mobility is reminded (Through talks, leaflets...) to Early Stage Researchers and Supervisors of this institution, encouraging early stage researchers to think about a period abroad and encouraging supervisors to receive foreign guests and send their own group members abroad Thank you for answering this questionnaire, please make some comments if you whish, specially if you have some ideas about other elements that should be taken into account when evaluating good practice examples in mobility of a research institution. B) Questionnaire for Institutions providing funds for mobility. 1. Select a country for this research institution: Other (Please specify) 2. In which city is this institution situated? (write 'several' if it is based in more than one city) 3. Name of the institution: 4. Web address of the institution (or alternatively the contact address) 5. Your address Funding and Economical issues 6.1) The amount of the salary should be according to the level of expenses in the country of destination. 6.2 This includes the travel expenses.. 6.3) The funding arrives to the researcher on time, not having the researchers to pay travel or accommodation before getting the money. 6.4) Funding takes into account the family status of the researchers, especially if he/she has children. Special salaries and mobility allowances are contemplated. 7. Health and social security: 7.1) Health insurance is provided for the stay in the host country. 7.2) Social Security is provided. 8. Availability of information: 8.1) The institution/organisation should provide a web page with all the information needed about the mobility programs financed. This web page should be available also in English. 8.2) A phone number or an address should be provided to ask for more information Thank you for answering this questionnaire, please make some comments if you whish, specially if you have some ideas about other elements that should be taken into account when evaluating good practice in mobility of a Research institution. Eurodoc- International Mobility Workgroup