The post is a share of PIE (Practices, Insights and Experiences)

I have been to quite many events, mainly conferences. I have a bag full of badges.

Conferences are most useful when building network. Learning new things in research field. One listen to talks, meet new researchers. Understands more in our research area. From interaction point of view, the poster session is more useful than oral talks (see previous PIE-letter, or visit MSCA Sweden web page under Practices, Insights and Experiences). The discussion is more fruitful by posters.

For building network, the next step is closer format discussion. When I had my first grants as PI, we had projects meetings. Partners in one Nordic project that I coordinated were in Sweden, Denmark and Germany (Germany was additional country in a call). So then I organized meetings. Half day was in general sufficient. Since they were travelling, I added others to meeting and called it workshop. Others also presented, there was interaction, broadening in topic area. From practical point of view it had to be two days, lunch to lunch. Then we had lunches, coffee breaks, and dinner together. There was extra discussion at those.

I started to run those regularly, and we had different hosts. Denmark, and Germany. Next also Japan because our project was related to Japanese initiative in silicon carbide as new LED material. We organized symposiums at E-MRS three times. After some years this lost momentum because funding was nog continued (we applied of course). Core consortium got new ideas based on learnings, we applied in those and got new projects. Still after 15 years we have a core consortium that collaborates. Latest project is an EIC Pathfinder.

Pandemic made everyone to learn online tools. So I started to have forums in certain topics of my interest and research area. People discuss and new ideas emerged. Sometimes there is forum with presentation. Sometimes forum as open meeting: a topic and we meet to discuss, no presentation.

Conferences are very one direction communication. 12 minute presentation and 3 minute question. Conference has certain focus, but being fairly broad in general. Workshops are more focussed in certain area. So I learned that conferences is mainly building network, workshops is deepen network in focussed areas. Because it is smaller format. Forum is complementary because we can do online, smaller than workshop and even more discussion, especially when there is no presentation.

Conferences have planned agenda. That leaves less room for new. Workshops have also agenda but has more time for time in between presentations. Forum has more exchange. These are very complementary. For career progression, the workshops and forums are more useful. Consortium ideas come from those, not conferences.

Key learning: be most active by forums and workshop. They have more interaction in topic that can grow to projects and funding. Builds relevant personal network more than shallow one from conferences. Being organizer increases visibility of yourself. Leave plenty of room for the unexpected (by generous time for discussion part).

Photo: my collected badges.

By Mikael Syväjärvi

The post is a share of PIE (Practices, Insights and Experiences)

What is a merit in CV and what is more useful for career are not always the same thing. As a young researcher, one desired merit related to conference presentations is oral talk. Mainly oral talks are given to established researchers, but from time to time there are also oral presentations given to a young researcher. That gives more visibility in conference booklet. Name is more pronounced instead of being in a list of poster presentations.

Certainly, chances are low for a young researcher to get an invited talk. A regular talk is the one that is relevant. If a young researcher gets invited talk or plenary, then that conference may not be a suitable one. Regular talks are typically 12 minutes presentation and 3 minutes for questions. In too many cases, a question is about something that was not understood. A minute or even two are gone. Next comes a relevant question that may be interesting to learn from. Discussions starts, and session chair keeps track of time. At some point after overtime of the allocated 15 minutes, chair interrupts the discussion and suggests that the discussion can continue at the next break. Obviously the audience will not have the possibility to listen and have insights from that discussion.

So what about a poster? Poster sessions are longer. Not one after one like in oral talks session, all posters are available at the same time. People walk around and stop at posters with an interesting title. Some ask a question. Maybe still some have not understood, but most who ask knows what poster is about and ask relevant questions. There will be a fruitful discussion for some time, and poster presenter has got some insight from the questions, and the person asking question has also got some new insight.

Maybe discussion was so interesting that they exchange business cards, or connect on LinkedIn. That is a step in your network building. Those connections are more relevant than connect requests on LinkedIn by social media passing strangers. The relevant connections will last over longer time, and at some point in the future may be an opportunity. Maybe job position, invited to consortium, etc.

Sometimes people stop for a while and then move on. It may be so that nobody asks a question. So your work from last year or so, and all preparation for poster, travel etc is not disseminated more than as a title in the conference booklet. Then you can be active. Ask those who stop: should I present the work for you so you get the overview? Most accept. Then present the findings and work, but do not get into all details. The update should not take too long time. If they actually are not so interested, you have wasted several minutes on explaining things. Maybe an interested person who actually may have a question walked by but saw you were busy and moved to another poster. But those who start asking questions after your overview, those are also the useful ones.

Over time, it is your network that will facilitate progress of career.

By Mikael Syväjärvi