This course is for researchers who want to grow their research activity to global leadership, and to be proactive to build career progress.

It is individual training. We will meet both individually and in small groups. The group will meet online via Zoom every second week. We will find a regular time that works for you in a group. In between group lectures you will have individual meeting to discuss your specific case. The course takes three months to complete. Course fee: 550 EUR.

The course consists of modules. Each module has lectures in various topics. You will use these to make an assignment (create own strategy plan). You will get a certificate when you finish your assignment.

Assignment

You will create your own strategic plan for research and career. You will get course certificate when your strategic research and career plan is finalized.

You will use input from lectures from the four modules to form your plan. You will have individual meeting with Dr. Syväjärvi between each lecture to go through the your plan. As outcome you have your own personal impact plan for research and career.

Module 1: Visibility: how it creates opportunities and promotes career

Publishing papers will not create visibility more than within your own expert area. You have to do outreach and become visible. Be proactive. When you are visible, people will contact you with ideas. How to do? The answer is easy. Implementing is more difficult. Here we share ways how to do this systemtically. Basically, you should organize activities and events so that people meet. If you are the organizer, you will be in focus. Start with workshop in your topic. This you most likely already do today in projects. Invite some others. Make workshops online and invite. Propose symposium. Here Dr. Syväjärvi will share his experiences and tricks, and present how it broadened his network.

– Practical steps to be recognized in the research community (shared practices and experiences)

– The importance of interaction at sessions (the magic happens here)

– Use workshops to develop your network

You will:

– learn how to build your visibility

– have insights in how you benefit from being visible

– understand how this promotes your career

Module 2: How to come to new ideas and collaborations

If you go to same conference every year, you will meet the same people. That will not bring you new opportunities. You will be updated with what has happened next. But not new ideas. You will need new ideas to be able to prospose better proposals. Face it, you will not get funding because you propose a proect that will improve your latest results. You have to propose new thinking. Maybe you will get some idea from presentation at a conference. To get that, you must find other conferences than before. You will get more ideas by interaction. That is not only at conferences. Opportunities also come from interaction with other areas. Here we present the ways and tricks to think about when creating interaction. Dr Syväjärvi will also share his experience when he stopped going to the annual silicon carbide conference after 15 years, and presented at other conferences which were not in silicon carbide. That opened a new world of collaboration and opportunities.

– Presentations vs interaction: It is not presentations which provide opportunities, it is the interaction.

– Interdisciplinary values, the attraction of multidisciplinarity

– Social media and reach out: more important than you realize

You will:

– understand how the exchange builds a pool that is the starting point of consortium for project proposals

– have insight that it is not really new thinking, it is to think in clever ways: plan in and see the value of synergies

– obtain learning how interaction and exchange build your network, that network is the foundation of your long-term research career

MODULE 3: How to find your own way and create synergies for career

In reality there will not be so much opportunity if working under one and same professor. You will need to find your own path.

Ofter we focus on our expert area. There are synergies if we think in broader context. In one activity, we can create synergies by thinking in different context. Make things connected.

In most cases the right time is not when you publish work. The things match at some later stage and come back. Dr Syväjärvi will share his experience in silicon carbide.

– Include multidisciplinarity (which you anyway need to do if you increase technology readiness level)

– How to find your own way (you actually have the answer in the above two modules)

MODULE 4: practical realization to come to business and impact

– Practical steps to bring research to business without need to be entrepreneur (shared practices and experiences)

– Shared data for business and sustainability in R&D innovations: this is a way to show impact and open research more than open publishing

– The multidisciplinary aspect for implementation in practice

—

The content in modules have been presented during a large number of sessions in the Research to Business Training.