Competence Center for the Promotion of Young Academics

At the General Assembly in October 2023, the members voted on and adopted the MOL position paper. We then researched the status quo, defined some points of reference and discussed the challenges. 
We propose the following measures:

• Liaison Office: a point of contact for all members of the academic mid-level faculty for advice and support in the areas of: Employment (rights and obligations), continuing education; career development and planning, funding opportunities and application, networking and collaboration, administration
• Expand the Graduate Academy offering to include internal further education and training, e.g. on publications, leadership, career engagement
• Anchor the visibility of existing offers and (interdisciplinary) networking, e.g. via the website, an intranet and a mentoring program coordinated by the Graduate Academy
• Advice and events for career development for doctoral students and postdocs at the Unilu Career Service
• The status quo of early career support at the University of Lucerne

There are indeed already a number of structures and vehicles in place, but they are not very well networked or coordinated. The most important points of contact, support programs and regulations are listed on the "Promotion of young talent" website of Quality Management (only available in German) and also on the MOL website under "Collaboration & Coordination". 

Orientation points for the MOL projects
The MOL survey and the 2022 employee survey have provided us with a great deal of information on the wishes, needs and need for change of mid-level faculty. Last year, there was also a research evaluation (German), which included a chapter on the promotion of early career researchers along with suggestions for action (see p. 54-56).
We also drew on current research, which shows what optimal support for doctoral students could look like - and how dependency relationships could be reduced if necessary. 
 
The challenges in the university
As in most organizations, structural resources such as time, personnel and budget pose the greatest challenges. We therefore also discussed with the university management how we could, for example, make more efficient use of existing resources and vessels or network them better. 
We therefore asked: with whom do we establish a regular exchange in order to develop the strategy and further development of junior researchers? And: How can we make offers more visible and accessible?

Outlook
We are pleased that our proposals have been well received by the university management and the Vice-Rectorates. We are now collecting your comments and ideas. Are there any important further measures or projects that we should derive from the position paper? What do you think are good conditions in research and teaching that we should pursue? Interested in participating?