The faculty is launching a comprehensive career development package

The career path of young researchers is often paved with unclear expectations and uncertain futures. Therefore, Health is now introducing an effort specifically targeted at them.

The goal of the career development effort is to clarify the opportunities available as an employee at Health – especially for postdocs and assistant professors.

Dean Anne-Mette Hvas, along with the faculty management, the Collaboration Committee, the Equality Committee, and the Academic Council, have worked on the content of the package. She hopes that many young researchers will now experience more transparent career paths at Health.

"To be a young researcher and employed in a temporary position can be challenging because it is associated with uncertainty about what the next step is. It is important to be able to talk about this among researchers and just as important, that it becomes clearer how one can create a research career," she says.

Seven offers for younger researchers

The career development package is launched with specific offers and efforts. It consists of seven elements designed to support the career development of younger researchers.

Here you can get an overview of the seven elements in the package:

Career ambassadors have been appointed at all five institutes, whom you have the opportunity to seek career guidance from or have a confidential conversation with about your considerations regarding your further career.

Expectation meetings with your immediate supervisor should help you to align the requirements of the position with your own career wishes. Here you can discuss opportunities, limitations, and future perspectives.

Career development dialogue within the first year of employment should ensure feedback, guidance, and help for individual development, so you are better prepared to make decisions about your further research career.

A career development plan is a voluntary support tool that can help you clarify your career goals.

Development goals for postdocs are an overview with examples that you can use as a basis for the career conversation.

Career clarifying activities at the institutes will continuously be offered to younger researchers – for example, networks, theme meetings, and workshops.

Career workshop at AU Career PhD & JR is an offer to all postdocs and assistant professors at Health.

"A match between both competence, interest, and opportunities"

Dean Anne-Mette Hvas emphasizes the importance of the effort and sees great value in these offers, which are specifically aimed at postdocs and assistant professors.

“I am particularly pleased with the initiative of appointing career ambassadors. The immediate supervisor may have a conflict of interest in relation to the researcher's further path, and that means it can be difficult to talk about the next step. For me, the goal is that it should be easier for young researchers to figure out what is needed to move forward with their career in a match between both competence, interest, and opportunities.”

In the next issue of Inside Health, you can meet the faculty's 12 newly appointed career ambassadors.

“I know that we do not solve all problems with this initiative, but we try to explore new ways to create more clarity and support for development. Right now, we are working to make the initiatives come to life, and the career development package will continue to be open for adjustments, new initiatives, and further development,” says Anne-Mette Hvas.

Read more about the effort here:

If you are interested in a research position or are already employed as an assistant professor or postdoc at Health, you can read about the career development plan and your career opportunities on the faculty's new career development website.

The site will be continuously updated with events and courses relevant to younger researchers.

The Department of Clinical Medicine has special frameworks for postdocs and assistant professors, which you can read more about on the department's website under the fold-out menu 'Career Paths'.

You can read more about career development for PhD students and younger researchers on the website for AU Career PhD & JR.

The initiative was launched last year, and here you can read what Inside Health wrote about the effort at the time.

Contact

Dean Anne-Mette Hvas
Aarhus University, Health
Phone: 87 15 20 07
Email: dean.health@au.dk

Advisor Tanja Hansen
Aarhus University, Faculty Secretariat Health
Phone: 93 50 81 08
Email: tanja.hansen@au.dk