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Estonia

EURAXESS focus turned to researchers´ careers

juuli_Inserting a biofluid sample to the robotic sample handling system_Renee Altrov

(Image: Renee Altrov)

Last years have brought essential changes to EURAXESS network. Until now, we have known EURAXESS as a platform for research jobs vacancies and relocation support services for researchers and their family members in moving between countries and to Europe. Now, the goal is to expand step-by-step to a comprehensive career support services platform for researchers.

A new mandate is given to the EURAXESS network by European Commission (EC). In September 2020, the EC adopted a “Communication on a new European Research Area (ERA) for Research and Innovation” where it is outlined that EURAXESS services, network and portals will be broadened into a comprehensive ERA Talent Platform – a one-stop-shop with improved structure and governance. The goal is backed also by Council Conclusions on the Future of the ERA where they called on the EC and Member States to develop EURAXESS into an ERA Talent Platform, to foster “inclusiveness” within the ERA, and that would be fit to address existing barriers to unbalanced mobility patterns. This should be achieved by supporting researchers in their career development within the ERA, connecting researchers and institutions, and improving employability and talent absorption and mobility schemes.

To answer these new goals, the EURAXESS network already piloted a new, hubs-based working model in a short EURAXESS Hubs project (2021-2022), to test if new working modalities would help us develop the services on an expected quality level. In general, the concept proved to be successful. It was concluded that proposed new way of work has a potential to keep our services effective and its quality continuously on high level.

This March, 34 EURAXESS coordinating members (also known as Bridgehead organisations, BHO-s) from different Member States kicked-off a new 3-years project, called ERA TALENT, with the aim to further develop the services provided by the existing EURAXESS network. The objective is to support the career development of researchers in Europe, expanding the career trajectories for them in academia, industry and business, either at home country or abroad. The ERA TALENT scope will be reached through the establishment of five thematic hubs that are built as one-stop-shops where researchers find information and support services. The hubs are going to be based on multidisciplinary teams, being cross-country and cross-border coordinated structures, with common agenda and standards of work, processes, and tools for talent management services. Different layers of specialization will be considered, such as a basic career orientation service or more advanced services, consisting of personalized assistance. Where necessary, the services are empowered with competences accessed through EURAXESS centres’ partnerships with other organizations.

The topics for the EURAXESS Hubs will be: Researcher Careers in Academia; Researcher Careers beyond Academia; Scientific Start-up Entrepreneurship; Supporting Talent Circulation; Science 4 Refugees.

The goals of the hubs will be, however, two-fold. The other side of the coin is to empower EURAXESS member institutions that wish to develop services for their target groups, using the common knowledge of the network. For this reason, the hubs will be fed by – and distributing – the competences of the members through six Communities of Practice (CoP), grouped under specific themes, to exchange experiences needed to strengthen and expand their talent management services for researchers.

An important part of the EURAXESS services is provided through its web-platform. EC has already started working on significantly improving the user experience of the EURAXESS central and national portals from technical side. New quality content will follow as common efforts made by EC and member states, including by outputs from ERA TALENT project.

We are positive that in next years, European researchers´ community can expect many interesting possibilities to enhance their career prospective with the help of renewed EURAXESS services. We remain at your disposal. In case you are interested in doing research in Estonia (also in case you are already situated here), please do not hesitate to write: euraxess@etag.ee