On June 9-10, 2023, Eurodoc’s AGM – Annual General Meeting – the annual general meeting of Eurodoc – the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, a non-governmental organization that internationally represents and protects the interests of more than two million young scientists in Europe took place. Eurodoc includes 23 national associations from 26 European countries. Ukraine has been a member of Eurodoc since 2014.
Despite the difficult logistics, the representative of the National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic” – Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Germanic Philology and Translation Anna Pavelieva, who was first elected to the position of External Communication Coordinator at to the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers in 2022, – took part in the AGM in Sweden.
The scientist’s responsibilities included leading the communication team, organizing the publication of articles on the Eurodoc website, posting on Eurodoc social networks, communicating with national organizations and stakeholders, conducting social media campaigns, and assisting the President and Vice-President of the organization.
“Last year was full of key events – Eurodoc representatives took part in the STOA round table on academic freedom, the launch meeting of the SECURE project and the ceremonial handover of the ISE Manifesto to European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel, the KRECon 2022 conference, the focus session on the Open Research Europe (ORE) project in Prague, held four webinars devoted to research strategies, career opportunities for young scientists, approaches to academic values in Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Ukraine, and discussions around the peer-review process.
During this year we issued 47 publications, including 2 interviews, Eurodoc official statements on academic freedom, Mariya Gabriel’s resignation, Mothers-in-Science issues, the plight of researchers in Iran, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the re-introduction by the Italian government the “Assegni di Ricerca” scholarship scheme, in relation to the conclusions of the EU Council on the evaluation of research and the implementation of open science and together with other key organizations protecting the rights of scientists and researchers, wrote a joint open letter to the European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel on the support of Ukrainian scientists during and after the war.
Among the key issues Eurodoc dealt with in 2022/2023 were issues of academic freedom, problems of Ukrainian postgraduate students and scientists during the war, difficulties faced by postgraduate students in EU countries, issues of recognition of the women scientists contribution to world science, gender equality in science and education, CoARA, agreement on reforming the evaluation of scientific research, Manifesto for Early Career Researchers and many others.
It was an incredible experience in terms of international communication as well as communication with key stakeholders, the experience of working in a large organization that is known at the European level helped me learn new skills and expand my circle of acquaintances.
It is also an opportunity to represent Ukraine at various events and talk about our life, research, teaching and learning during the war. Despite the blackouts in the autumn-winter period, I managed to implement all the planned projects, not a single event or publication was disrupted, which surprised my colleagues from other countries. All Eurodoc members are extremely friendly, supportive of Ukraine and eager to help, so when I was offered to apply again for the position of External Communication Coordinator this year, I agreed without hesitation.
Together with Sebastian Dahle – the new president of Eurodoc – we have already discussed the new communication strategy of Eurodoc for 2023/2024, planned several big campaigns, including one dedicated to the life and work of Ukrainian scientists during the war. We have many ambitious plans for the coming year,” – shared Anna Pavelieva.
It should be recalled that Poltava Polytechnic scientists took part in the international conference “Internationalisation as the Key to Resilience and Rebuilding: Twinning Anniversary”.
Earlier, Poltava Polytechnic scientists successfully completed internships under the Erasmus+ programme on the basis of the Romanian partner university.
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National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
