Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ARISE (Career Accelerator for Research Infrastructure Scientists)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2023-04-30
The ARISE Fellowships programme is implemented by European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL, to train and develop Europe’s next generation of leadership for life science research infrastructures – facilities, resources and related services used by the scientific community to conduct top level research. Research infrastructures play an increasingly important role in research and development activity by providing access to the latest detection, imaging, computational, and research techniques at scale. Maintaining and improving these infrastructures requires interdisciplinary skills – spanning science, engineering, service provision and management – that are not usually provided by traditional training programmes in academia or industry.
The programme is running from 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2026 and is co-funded by EMBL and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Action (MSCA) of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.
The major goals of ARISE programme are to:
- support career development of researchers interested in development of novel technologies and methods, who want to get specialisation for the roles in research infrastructures.
- recruit up to 62 fellows for the >40 groups and teams at EMBL who are participating in ARISE program.
- promote development of novel technologies which will speed up discoveries in various fields of life sciences (drug discovery, environmental research, literature services, cancer research and others).
- foster multidisciplinarity, diversity and inter-sectoral understanding and mobility.
To realise this ambition, academic groups, ARISE management, and EMBL administration that drive all ARISE activities carry out a multitude of activities around three pillars of strongly interwoven approaches:
1. organisation of recruitment rounds
2. supervision and integration of the fellows
3. training of the fellows in competencies specific to the roles in RIs, and in scientific and technology and method development skills.
In these endeavors, ARISE and EMBL are supported by the expertise of 46 partners across the globe.
The programme is running from 1 May 2021 to 30 April 2026 and is co-funded by EMBL and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND Action (MSCA) of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme.
The major goals of ARISE programme are to:
- support career development of researchers interested in development of novel technologies and methods, who want to get specialisation for the roles in research infrastructures.
- recruit up to 62 fellows for the >40 groups and teams at EMBL who are participating in ARISE program.
- promote development of novel technologies which will speed up discoveries in various fields of life sciences (drug discovery, environmental research, literature services, cancer research and others).
- foster multidisciplinarity, diversity and inter-sectoral understanding and mobility.
To realise this ambition, academic groups, ARISE management, and EMBL administration that drive all ARISE activities carry out a multitude of activities around three pillars of strongly interwoven approaches:
1. organisation of recruitment rounds
2. supervision and integration of the fellows
3. training of the fellows in competencies specific to the roles in RIs, and in scientific and technology and method development skills.
In these endeavors, ARISE and EMBL are supported by the expertise of 46 partners across the globe.
Since start of the program on 1 May 2021, we have successfully run 3 open calls for future RI scientists and have hired 28 fellows. They are working in the fields of data and computational engineering, molecular biotechnology, imaging and optical engineering and mechanical engineering, developing novel technologies and methods that will be included in the service offers of EMBL research infrastructure and broader. These novel technologies will speed up discoveries by a wide range of scientists working in the fields of cell and structural biology, ecology, drug development, developmental biology, omic fields, neurobiology, immunology and broader.
Our fellows come from 13 countries and have previously worked in 11 different scientific backgrounds (e.g. molecular biology, biophysics, structural biology, computational sciences, optical engineering etc.)
For the fellows, we have developed and implemented a unique training offer, that teaches the fellows how to run service and manage teams, how to support users, manage projects, and promote innovation. These are delivered in a series of lectures comprising 120h, spanning over 3 years. Beside these professional skills, fellows improve their technology development skills (working on their own project; attending scientific courses and conferences and doing secondments at partner organisations and within EMBL) and transferable skills through a range of training offered by the EMBL HR career services.
To administratively support the fellows and the whole ecosystem enabling their training, we have further:
- cultivated and strengthened collaboration with multiple organisations working int he field of Life sciences and RIs, who participate in our evaluation of the fellows and their training.
- established all management and supervision bodies of ARISE program
- established online system to follow the education progressions of the fellows
- developed all reporting documents and templates which should be used by the fellows to report to the program about their key activities (progress reports, meetings with the supervisor, secondments etc)_
- developed legal documentation needed for the hiring of the fellows and for the signature of the collaboration agreement with the partner organizations
- established regular interactions with the fellows and their supervisors
Our fellows come from 13 countries and have previously worked in 11 different scientific backgrounds (e.g. molecular biology, biophysics, structural biology, computational sciences, optical engineering etc.)
For the fellows, we have developed and implemented a unique training offer, that teaches the fellows how to run service and manage teams, how to support users, manage projects, and promote innovation. These are delivered in a series of lectures comprising 120h, spanning over 3 years. Beside these professional skills, fellows improve their technology development skills (working on their own project; attending scientific courses and conferences and doing secondments at partner organisations and within EMBL) and transferable skills through a range of training offered by the EMBL HR career services.
To administratively support the fellows and the whole ecosystem enabling their training, we have further:
- cultivated and strengthened collaboration with multiple organisations working int he field of Life sciences and RIs, who participate in our evaluation of the fellows and their training.
- established all management and supervision bodies of ARISE program
- established online system to follow the education progressions of the fellows
- developed all reporting documents and templates which should be used by the fellows to report to the program about their key activities (progress reports, meetings with the supervisor, secondments etc)_
- developed legal documentation needed for the hiring of the fellows and for the signature of the collaboration agreement with the partner organizations
- established regular interactions with the fellows and their supervisors
Cutting edge contribution of ARISE to the broader scientific community of the researches is the development and publication of the Competencies Framework for the scientists working in the research infrastructure (available at https://competency.ebi.ac.uk/framework/arise/0.5). Further, to support our fellows to plan their careers, we have identified the roles existing in research infrastructures world wide, described them and mapped the possible career progression track within this career path. This kind of information was not exiting prior ARISE and is very much appreciated by the scientific and RI community.
Additionally, with ARISE we are facilitating the diversification of the expertise and profiles in the life sciences, bringing technology and method developers into life science community, where they can propose technical and methodological solutions that can speed up the work of numerous scientists and solving of variety of scientific problems. ARISE is increasing the number of technology developers (e.g. engineers, physicists, other STEM experts) at EMBL, and enabling novel technologies development and improvement of services beyond the present state-of-the-art. This is supporting Sustainable development goals 4, 8 and 9.
With the innovative training program, ARISE fellows are becoming one of the first generations of infrastructures experts who are getting structured training on development of methods and technologies for services, operation and management of research infrastructure teams, and European strategy for RI and Open science. The excellence of the staff in RI is key to the efficient operation of the RIs and innovation driven by the needs of the scientists who are using RI. In this way, ARISE is directly contributing to the return on the investment in the RI instrumentation and building infrastructures, which amounts to 20 billion Euros in the last 20 years in the EU countries.
Establishing ARISE is further supporting career diversification in life sciences, promoting a career track to researchers who wish work in academic set up on the scientific breakthroughs across multiple scientific fields and questions, and as such do not want to focus on their own focused research question. To be able to span a wide breath of scientific topics, and link it to technology and method innovation, as well as successful management of operation of RI, we need the best and most talented researchers for these roles.
Indeed, we are proud that ARISE fellows have in the short time (first generation started at the end of 2021) published 28 scientific publications and innovation, in the forms of papers, pre-prints, software solutions, instrument improvements, codes, and presentations at the conferences and workshops.
Additionally, with ARISE we are facilitating the diversification of the expertise and profiles in the life sciences, bringing technology and method developers into life science community, where they can propose technical and methodological solutions that can speed up the work of numerous scientists and solving of variety of scientific problems. ARISE is increasing the number of technology developers (e.g. engineers, physicists, other STEM experts) at EMBL, and enabling novel technologies development and improvement of services beyond the present state-of-the-art. This is supporting Sustainable development goals 4, 8 and 9.
With the innovative training program, ARISE fellows are becoming one of the first generations of infrastructures experts who are getting structured training on development of methods and technologies for services, operation and management of research infrastructure teams, and European strategy for RI and Open science. The excellence of the staff in RI is key to the efficient operation of the RIs and innovation driven by the needs of the scientists who are using RI. In this way, ARISE is directly contributing to the return on the investment in the RI instrumentation and building infrastructures, which amounts to 20 billion Euros in the last 20 years in the EU countries.
Establishing ARISE is further supporting career diversification in life sciences, promoting a career track to researchers who wish work in academic set up on the scientific breakthroughs across multiple scientific fields and questions, and as such do not want to focus on their own focused research question. To be able to span a wide breath of scientific topics, and link it to technology and method innovation, as well as successful management of operation of RI, we need the best and most talented researchers for these roles.
Indeed, we are proud that ARISE fellows have in the short time (first generation started at the end of 2021) published 28 scientific publications and innovation, in the forms of papers, pre-prints, software solutions, instrument improvements, codes, and presentations at the conferences and workshops.