Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) Network

The Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) network is organised by early-career researchers, for early-career researchers, and includes volunteers from across the Europlanet international community. The EPEC network is open to all early-career planetary scientists and space professionals whose last degree (e.g. MSc or PhD) was obtained a maximum of 7 years ago (excluding parental leave, serious illness and similar delays).

One of the main objectives of EPEC is to form a strong network between young professionals by organising early-career-relevant events and by engaging in different projects amongst the different working groups (see website for more details on working groups). Furthermore, the EPEC community aims to bring a young voice into Europlanet Society to shape the future of planetary and space sciences and engineering.

Check out the latest EPEC news and activities.

Get involved with EPEC!

The EPEC Committee and the nine EPEC Working Groups are constantly looking for interested early-career professionals who are willing to spend some of their academic time with the organising elements of various EPEC activities. By getting involved with the EPEC Committee or one of the Working Groups, you not only get a chance to build a diverse professional network across Europe and abroad, but also build important soft-skills such as leadership qualities and management experience by working with a very friendly and energetic community.

For any questions and enquiries, and interest to join us in building a stronger early career network, please contact epec.network@gmail.com

Upcoming events

EPEC Newsletter

If you would like to receive news (e.g., about the annual EPEC week or the next activities planned at EPSC), please sign up here. We will not spam you with lots of emails, but only send a few emails per year with relevant information.

EPEC Logos

Call for applications for two EPEC Committee Co-Chairs

Submit your application by 28th June 2021, 7 PM CEST

Europlanet Early Career Network (EPEC) Committee is proudly announcing the ‘Call for applications for two EPEC Committee Co-Chairs‘

EPEC was officially launched at EPSC 2017 in Riga. EPEC network is organised by early-career researchers, for early-career researchers, and includes volunteers from across the Europlanet international community. The strong focus of EPEC is to form a strong network between young professionals by organising early-career-relevant events and by engaging in different projects amongst the different Working Groups (WGs) such as EPEC annual week, EPEC@EPSC, New Frontiers, Future Research, Early Career Support, Outreach, Diversity, Communications, Finances.

The EPEC Committee is the management body (Chairs and Co-chairs of each WG+ EPEC Committee Chair) of the Europlanet Early Career (EPEC) Network who lead the respective WGs of the EPEC Network. EPEC Committee acts as a strategic and operational body to advise, coordinate and champion Early Career activities across the Europlanet Society that further the Society’s commitment to building and sustaining Europe’s planetary science community. The Chair of the EPEC Committee plays a key role in bringing the WGs and their activities together, making key decisions that benefit the EPEC network as a whole, expanding the EPEC Committee by encouraging new and innovative ideas from the EPEC Committee, facilitating progress across the whole Early Career Network.

With the exponential growth in EPEC activities across EPEC working groups since its launch and with the term of our current EPEC committee Chair ending, the EPEC Committee is looking for two elected Committee Chairs for the next term to help sustain the Committee activities. The term of the elected EPEC Committee Chairs will be two years with an option to extend for an additional year. Expected time commitment of the elected EPEC Chair is approximately three hours per week, averaged over one year. However, an increased commitment is expected during the EPEC Annual Week and EPSC organising weeks.

Key responsibilities of the elected EPEC Chair:

Liaising with WG Chairs and keep up-to-date with EPEC WG activities
Engage in the EPEC forums on WG activities and discussions
EPEC Committee Chair acts as the main contact person with Europlanet Society Executive Board
Represent EPEC at EPSC (General Assembly) and at the EPEC Annual week
Writing bi-yearly reports on EPEC Committee activities (with help of WG Chairs)
Guaranteeing smooth transition with the next EPEC Committee Chair*

*In case the chair needs to leave EPEC, they should give notice (6 months) in advance to organise the transition.

Eligibility to apply:

The candidates of the EPEC Chair must fulfill the following requirements:

The candidate must be a member of Europlanet Society
The candidate must be a EPEC member
The candidate must be an early-career planetary scientist and/or space professional whose last degree (e.g. MSc or PhD) was obtained a maximum of 7 years ago (excluding parental leave, serious illness and similar delays).

We encourage applications from a diverse early career community (undergraduates, graduates, doctoral researchers, and postdocs)!

How to apply:
If you are interested to become EPEC Chair, please submit your application via this link by 28th of June 7 PM CEST.

Personal note from our current EPEC Chair:

“I personally believe that taking responsibilities at a young age allows us to learn the professional elements in a more stress-free environment and EPEC allowed me exactly that!! At EPEC, we are a team who are not only passionate about the research we do but also equally passionate in engraining varieties of soft skills including leadership and management qualities that benefit our early career fellows in becoming young professionals. It’s a rewarding and unique experience to work with early-career researchers across Europe and the international community across various working groups under common goals. I strongly believe that new EPEC Chairs will bring fresh air and new strengths to the ever growing EPEC Committee activities. I wish you all the best with the election. In case you wish to discuss with me personally regarding the tasks involved with the open position, please feel free to reach me via indhu.varatharajan@gmail.com”

– Indhu Varatharajan, EPEC Chair (since Feb. 2018)

We wish you all the best with the applications!

If you have any questions, please write us via epec.network@gmail.com
Looking forward to reading your applications !!

Thank you

EPEC Committee