New Early Careers (EPEC) Section of Europlanet Website

New Europlanet Early Careers (EPEC) Webpages Launched

The Europlanet Early Careers (EPEC) Network has launched a new sub-section of the Europlanet Society website. The webpages include information on EPEC’s seven Working Groups, details of how to get involved in the network, and early-career-related news. The launch coincides with the announcement of the call for applications for the second EPEC Annual Week, which will take place at the University of Lisbon from 20-24th May.

The EPEC Committee Chair, Indhu Varatharajan explains: “All the members of the EPEC Committee and Working Groups have been working very hard. We are excited to now be able to launch our new webpages and the call for applications for our second Annual Week. The EPEC webpages are a place where people can get more of an idea about what EPEC does and how to get involved with our seven Working Groups. The EPEC Committee is passionate about its work towards bringing all early career professionals under one roof and help them not only excel in research but also in making the future leaders. We are excited to announce our 2nd EPEC Annual Week at Lisbon this May which is a platform to getting together with the broader EPEC community to not only benefit from our extensive training sessions but also work directly with the EPEC Committee to devise action plans towards future EPEC activities and contribute to the EPEC network. Please register now!”

The EPEC Working Groups currently active include:

Members of the EPEC Community are also invited to submit articles for a monthly series focusing on inspiring outreach projects by early career scientists. The series aims to share ideas and the lessons learned.

Chairs of the EPEC Outreach Working Group, Anastasia Kokori and Petr Brož, say: “Outreach is a really powerful activity in which scientific research is shared with the public. It plays a significant role in the scientific community but, at the same time, outreach is really difficult. In order to achieve a successful outreach activity, a variety of skills are required, e.g. simplifying complex scientific concepts, using the appropriate language and applying strong communication skills. It is also very important to consider the audience, since every group of people differs from the others and requires a specific approach. Hence, a range of innovative learning tools or materials are necessary. Inspiration is a key ingredient to pursue an effective science communication activity! And we hope this series will motivate the scientific community to improve their outreach techniques.”

The first article by Petr about the “Barrel organ of plate tectonics” is now online!

For more information about EPEC, contact: epec.network@gmail.com or subscribe to the EPEC Newsletter.