MRC Postdocs Symposium 2014
The Inaugural PostDoc Symposium was held on 8 – 10 September 2014 at the Moller Institute in Cambridge www.mollerinstitute.com. The event brought together 63 PostDocs from various different units all over the country and provided a mix of talks, workshops, dinners and networking opportunities.
Monday morning started early for the delivery team, making sure that people were posted at poignant positions around the Moller Centre and at the accommodation site in Churchill College.
Registration commenced at 9am with the first delegates arriving and receiving their name badges and programme outline for the next three days. Coffee and refreshments were plentiful and delicious throughout the whole of the event and an opportunity to familiarise and relax a little before the event started was taken.
Delegates were welcomed by double-act Ted Smith, MRC HR Director and Jim Smith, MRC Deputy CEO.
Jim Smith chaired the opening session which focussed on the PostDoc journey and experiences were shared from speakers who had been there and showed their paths to how they got to where they are now.
Speakers included:
- Laurens Kruidener and Chun-wa Chung from GSK
- Kathy Niaken – PLT, NIMR
- Sylvia Corronchano – Investigator Scientist, MGU
- Anne Willis – Unit Director, Toxicology
- Steve Brown – Director, MRC Harwell
The day continued with workshops on:
Journal Writing – Anke Sparmann, Associate Editor, Nature
Translation & Technology Transfer – Dave Tapolczay, CEO, MRC Technology
Career Planning – Anita Edmonds, Penna
Then concluded with a Speed Networking Session hosted by MRC TUS http://mrc-tus.org.uk which was received and embraced exceptionally well by all involved, indeed, there were cries for ‘more’.
Everyone discussed the learning's from the day over dinner in the Moller Centre Restaurant.
Refreshed and raring to go, Tuesday started with a Plenary talk from Richard Henderson, former Director, LMB describing the journey that he had taken throughout his career in Science.
Followed by workshops on:
Grant Writing – Dave Crosby, Programme Manager, MRC
Career Planning – Anita Edmonds, Penna
Success For All – Ele Zeggini, Sandler Institute and Catherine Sandler, Sandler Consulting
Lab Leadership – Alan Bate, Bray Leino
Fellowship Workshop, which comprised a mock panel interview organised by Julia Dickinson, MRC Programme Manager and included Fellows:
Simon Johnston, Monika Gullerova, Nick Gilbert, Simon Hollingsworth, Shaun Cowley and Alan Robinson.
The day then ended in the grounds of and Fellows Dining Room at Murray Edwards College with a drinks reception and pianist playing a selection of space related songs as a prelude to the After Dinner Speech by Kevin Fong @kevin_fong who regaled the company with stories of NASA and the Vomit Comet, and also proved to be an inspirational and engaging dinner guest.
Wednesday arrived and with it came the closing day of the Symposium. A talk on how the MRC fund Research was given by Julia Dickinson.
Sir John Savill, MRC CEO was then interviewed in a ‘Parkinson style’ interview entitled Sir John Savill: My life in science, hosted by Ted Smith and questions were taken from the audience.
Final workshop time:
Translation & Technology Transfer – Howard Marriage, Francis Crick Institute
Success for All – Rebecca Simmons, Head of VC Office, Cambridge and Rob Barkworth, Pearn Kandola
Lab Leadership – Alan Bate, Bray Leino
The symposium closed with a de-brief and prizes for volunteers to help put together the next symposium, Esmerelda Para-Peralbo, Rudi Prihandoko and Marek Tyl, also for the engagement during the symposium including twitter interaction for Adam Tozer, Ede Rancz, Marion Yon and Louise Fets.
Lunch then concluded a very successful, enlightning and thoroughly enjoyable 3 days.
Speakers presentations are available on the right hand side of this page under 'Document downloads'.
Some feedback from the feedback board at the event:
“The symposium was interesting and useful, in particular the mock interview of MRC fellows, the Leadership session and Success for All. I would add more time for the speed dating. More examples of course opportunities within the academia research sector. More information about fellowship funding.”
“This has been a fantastic symposium, a fantastic opportunity to network and meet my peers. It would be fantastic if there were follow-up opportunities to meet up again in the future, outside the next symposium enabling the next generator networks to grow”.
“Video speakers and you tube it for colleagues who can’t be here”
Some Feedback from our Twitter account:
“Receiving honest and priceless insights into scientific career progression @MRCpostdocs symposium session chaired by @ProfJimSmith
@MRCpostdocs Great talks so far.I enjoyed Anne Will's advice for independence: do what your supervisor does well&improve on what they don't!
great 1st day, full of inspiration and 60s summaries of scientific careers
Contact Us:
Julie Williams: Julie.williams@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk, 01793 416368
Jeroen Stam: Jeroen.stam@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk, 01793 416397
Linda Holliday: Linda.holliday@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk, 01793 416369