Calling all Wellcome Early Career Researchers…

Last year when our Advisory Board met, there came a point in the meeting where everyone agreed that the board would be enhanced with an injection of individuals who could best represent the many Early Career Researchers (ECRs) supported by Wellcome. It was there and then we made the decision that WOR would create a new, separate board to be run exclusively by ECRs to provide an active voice for researchers building their careers in academia.

The Early Career Researchers Advisory Board (ECRAB):

Our goal is to create an energetic, diverse, and creative group of researchers that can help guide us to tackle the challenges of publishing as an ECR. If you are passionate about improving the quality of the early-career researcher publishing experience – and want to help shape how we develop the Wellcome Open Research (WOR) platform – please consider joining us!

Eligibility

Membership of the Wellcome Open Research Early Career Advisory Board is open to researchers who:

• are Wellcome funded;
• have no more than five years’ active experience in an independent position (time away for parental leave, health leave, or other reasons unrelated to research are not included in “active experience,” and an independent position is defined here as having secured independent funding.);
• share a vibrant enthusiasm for open research and open access publishing.

Responsibilities

Members of the ECRAB will influence and support WOR’s mission to catalyse broad reform in publishing research outputs. Focused efforts will be made to represent the needs and aspirations of researchers at early stages in their careers. Members will provide input in several ways including:

• generating ideas and offering advice on new efforts that will specifically benefit early-career researchers;
• developing and supporting new initiatives for WOR, such as webinars, blog posts, and outreach events;
• attending quarterly phone calls and one annual meeting.

The Chair of the ECRAB will also be invited to join the full Wellcome Open Research Advisory Board (see: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/advisors).

The full terms of reference for the ECRAB can be found here. 

Benefits

In addition to helping shape the future of WOR – and in turn help to influence the future of scholarly communications – members of the ECRAB will:

• be given an opportunity to publish articles on the WOR blog to engage the community on a range of topics and issues;
• be invited to attend an in-person annual ECRAB meeting (all expenses covered);
• have the opportunity to run ECR-specific webinars, supported by Wellcome staff;
• enjoy professional experience with working on an advisory board for a charity;
• receive an introductory welcome kit, including exclusive ECRAB merchandise.

Application Process

To be considered for a position on the ECRAB, please complete this short form (it shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes). We will be closing the application process in one month on 4th April 2019.

If you have any further questions about this please feel free to contact us at [email protected].