PAGES ECN develops activity clusters: A new structure to support global networking

The PAGES ECN Steering Committee

The PAGES Early-Career Network (ECN; pastglobalchanges.org/ecn) was developed to create a permanent platform for early-career researchers (ECRs) to exchange ideas, perform outreach, engage in skill development, and find collaborations among fellow ECRs within PAGES. The PAGES ECN is an integral part of PAGES and provides a platform for all ECRs, whether or not they are directly involved with an active PAGES working group. Moreover, the ECN helps ECRs become more involved in the scientific community and within PAGES.

Originally founded by 11 ECRs following the 2017 PAGES Young Scientists Meeting in Spain, the structure of the group has evolved as membership has grown. The Steering Committee, now comprising 10 members serving fixed terms, largely oversees visioning, communication, and coordination of activities among different branches of the group.

Many initiatives and activities have recently grown into activity "clusters". Any ECN member is welcome to initiate or join a cluster, which is run relatively independently, albeit in close communication with the Steering Committee. With this new cluster structure, we aim to increase diverse and global representation within the PAGES ECN and encourage collaboration among members. We invite ECRs from various backgrounds to bring in their ideas and engage in leadership roles, whether they are directly managing ongoing activities (e.g. the blog) or single products (e.g. a local workshop). In this article, we introduce our updated structure and some exciting new initiatives.

Figure 1: Structural overview of the PAGES ECN.

Training and networking events are organized by the Workshop and Webinar clusters, with annual workshops and webinars on topics relevant for ECRs as well as for the wider paleoscience community. The Write Club cluster organizes online writing retreats for members to commit scheduled time to writing in a focused atmosphere. The Blog cluster organizes our peer-reviewed blog, The Early Pages (theearlypages.blogspot.com), giving ECRs the opportunity to share their research and stories and gain experience in the review process. The Science cluster is the most recent initiative to be formed, which aims to facilitate scientific collaboration and new projects among ECRs. The ECN clusters also catalyze opportunities for ECRs beyond PAGES, such as the ECR workshop "Past Socio-Environmental Systems" (PASES; pases2020.com), jointly organized with INQUA (inqua.org/ecr).

Each PAGES working group has at least one member serving as an ECN liaison to ensure optimal communication about opportunities for ECRs in PAGES. Regional representatives from countries worldwide work to promote the ECN and PAGES among peers in their region. Regional representatives support the ECN by sharing job, funding, and other opportunities from their region and are a point of contact for local ECRs. Many new initiatives within the ECN are driven by regional representatives, in connection with the activity clusters (Fig. 1). For example, regional representatives in Central and South America have organized several Spanish-language webinars and those in Africa are developing an interactive database to track opportunities for ECRs within their region. New ideas for workshops, outreach, and other ECN products are also being developed by the Steering Committee, regional representatives, and other active ECN members.

All interested ECRs of PAGES are welcome to join the ECN to participate in any of our activities or share ideas and contribute to our products. If you are interested in joining or leading a cluster, please send an email to the appropriate contact (an overview and contact information is found on our website: pastglobalchanges.org/ecn/clusters).

Initiatives to form new clusters are welcome as well. If you want to learn more about our activities in general, go to our website (pastglobalchanges.org/ecn) or contact your local regional representative (pastglobalchanges.org/ecn/support). You can also subscribe to the ECN mailing list (listserv.unibe.ch/mailman/listinfo/pages.ecn.pages) to receive our monthly newsletter and general announcements.

Authors and affiliations

S.J. Alexandroff (University of Exeter, UK)
X. Benito (National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), University of Maryland, Annapolis, USA)
A. Bonk (University of Gdańsk, Poland)
M. Mette (US Geological Survey, St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center, FL, USA)
N. Schafstall (Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic)
T. Trofimova (NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway)

contact

PAGES ECN Steering Committee: pages.ecn@gmail.com