The world of academia can at times seem daunting for early career researchers. Last week’s event, the Early Career Dialogues was a virtual workshop across two days for PhD and early Postdocs. The impetus was to provide meaningful interactions and facilitate learning from multiple perspectives and diverse contexts. It was also a space to engage with, and reflect upon the Earth System Governance Project’s 2018 Science and Implementation Plan.
Speakers included
Susan Park on Eco-Justice for Harm in International Development
Louis Kotzé on Exploring the Potential of Earth System Law in a Intradisciplinary, Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Setting
Leticia Merino on Policies of natural resources and extractive economic models
Aarti Gupta on Steering the Imagination: Anticipatory Governance of Speculative Technologies.
Joost Vervoort hosted a meditation session which included questions on how we can bring imagination into our research.
All in all, we hosted 15 hours of sessions with 45 participants.
So what did our scholars think?
“The Early Career Dialogues were such a fantastic and one of a kind experience; I am grateful to the ESG Project for facilitating the perfect space where junior scholars from diverse disciplines can share their ongoing research and find support. I wish I had more of this in my country!”
- Pablo Serra-Palao, University of Murcia, Spain.
“The ESG Early Career Dialogues proved to be insightful, thought-provoking and not to mention fun. Knowing that we are supported by such a dynamic network is certainly inspiring and no doubt will lead to many fruitful collaborations in the future.”
- Cebuan Bliss, Radbound University, The Netherlands
Scholars came from institutions in Spain, Argentina, Canada, United Kingdom, Sweden, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, India, Australia, USA, Brasil, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, and Slovakia. The global context provided an opportunity to step outside of our local departments, disciplinary comfort zones, and build unexpected relationships. We look forward to a new cohort of research fellows joining the project so that they feel supported to build research collaborations that work to understand, imagine and help realize just and sustainable futures.
The Organising Committee was led by SSC education lead Cristina Inoue, who has recently transitioned her career and personal life from Brasil to the Netherlands. We would like to thank her for juggling this with the event organisation. Vasna Ramasar, Marta Berbés-Blázquez, Stanislava Brnkalakova and Ana Flávia Barros-Platiau built and facilitated the various interactive sessions for participants. The committee jointly designed and hosted the event with the ESG International Project Office.