Ahead of the Regional Futures Conference, the RSA Women’s Network held a workshop on 12 November. This revolved all around tips for career development and planning. For the first time, the workshop was held as a hybrid event, with participants joining from all over the world as well as in person in London. The workshop consistent of three sessions. First, we travelled around the world, hearing about academic career trajectories in Africa from Christiana Fianu and Palesa Mpofu, in India from Chandrima Mukhopadhyay, in Hong Kong from Sylvia He, and in Latin America from Andrea Belmartino and Daniela Calá. We heard about general ‘prototypical’ careers and the representation of women at different career stages, as well as presenters personal reflections on how their careers followed or differed from the average.
Next up, Muthu de Silva gave tips on how to build your CV. She made the argument that your career is co-created in collaboration with many others, including co-authors, students, and other stakeholders such as participants in and users of research. While these stakeholders can help achieve career goals, they also shape trajectories and are sources of ideas and opportunities.
Lastly, Maria Abreu joined in person to reflect on the challenges of the mid-career stage. She explained that there is less support available for researchers at this stage, while we are confronted by new tasks and challenges at the same time, such as more administrative and managerial responsibilities. Ending on a positive note, she provided examples of recently introduced support programmes for this stage, such as targeted grants or mentoring programmes, and suggested that an important skill to develop at this stage is when to say ‘no’.
The Women’s Network is always looking for new ideas for seminars and workshops and is open for new members to join at any time. If you have ideas and suggestions or would like to join the Network, please contact Alex Holmes.