Piloting EURAXESS talent hubs to support researchers’ careers
The EU-funded EURAXESS Hubs project builds on existing digital infrastructure to help young talent plan major moves with respect to career direction and residence.
EURAXESS, which has a digital presence in countries around the world, includes dozens of European countries, with over 40 national portals where country-specific information is available. There are over 600 EURAXESS centres in Europe with dedicated staff to support mobility and career advancement, with an additional network of representatives worldwide in key partner countries. The project invited the contributions of these resources to create hubs that will help streamline the services available. The project team designed and launched three pilot hubs that integrate digital platforms in order to enhance cross-border collaboration. These hubs, which are competence-specific and target researchers, research organisations, and EURAXESS network members, offer information, direction, and personalised assistance. The hubs incorporate a number of partners, some of whom are new to the EURAXESS network and some more experienced, and each contributed to the project in tailored, complementary ways.
The key objectives of each EURAXESS Hub were:
- To develop a specific toolkit for implementing each EURAXESS hub – to create more effective signposting and personalized assistance within EURAXESS centres
- To build cross-border partnerships of participants involved in EURAXESS hubs to implement each toolkit in a pilot
- To demonstrate the benefits and opportunities offered by cross-country EURAXESS hubs with outreach and dissemination activities
Pilot hubs were implemented and validated in three thematic areas:
• Talent management in academia and the public sector
• Researcher careers beyond academia
• Scientific startup entrepreneurship
During the implementation, the hubs were actively engaged with the targeted stakeholders; rolled out pilot services that are scaled to the operation of the hub and are based on already available tools and expertise; finally, as a result, produced digital toolkits, each toolkit showcasing the respective hub’s area of operation and enabling the adoption of the hub based service model by further ESCs.
The hub activities and results were widely disseminated, with the prospect of the established cross-border hubs remaining operational beyond the project lifetime. The produced digital toolkits will be meant for use by any ESCs that is interested in implementing this novel service provision architecture, either by joining existing hubs or forming additional ones after the project’s end.
Duration: Sep 1, 2021 – Aug 31, 2022
Coordination: Bay Zoltan, Hungary | Consortium of 30 partner countries (Austria is represented by the OeAD)
Our task
The OeAD was involved within WP2 “Novel skills – talent management hub for assisting researchers within academia and the public sector”, task 2.3 “Gender overview, learning and sharing”.
- The EURAXESS Hub on talent gives the opportunity to get a structured and balanced overview on relevant gender policy, specific gender funding opportunities and good practices for young researchers, policy makers and ESCs.
- Focus group interviews will get young researchers’ input on gender, its impact, and the connection between practice and gender policy.
- A gender seminar will share experiences, disseminate information, and reach out to young researchers and policy makers to connect gender policy to practice.