ENGAGE.EU Online-Training: International Networking in Academia (Day 1)
You have a solid academic profile, an inspiring idea and even the drive to make it happen? Yet, some promising opportunities seem out of reach.
Because often, it is not your work that is lacking. It is your network! As in most areas of life, personal connections in academia can lead to the most significant breakthroughs. This workshop gives you practical tools to build real connections that lead to collaborations, insights, and jobs without the need to “sell” yourself. It is about forming and drawing support from a friendly network.
This workshop will provide you with easy networking techniques and will teach you open, honest and unobtrusive methods to help you make the best use of opportunities like conferences, chance meetings and careers fairs.
This workshop will teach you how to:
- Approach people and start conversations in unobtrusive, non-pushy ways.
- Make a good impression on potential collaboration partners or employers without the hard sell.
- Reliably find an institute/
group that is right for you to collaborate with or work in. - Access the hidden job market of unadvertised positions when job hunting, become the “preferred candidate” or even have positions created specifically for you.
- Gather the information needed to aid your search and any negotiations (including conditions, authorship and salary).
- Give yourself the edge over others who use the more usual methods of contacting people.
- The confidence to make progress. Knowing how to network is not enough. You also need to develop confidence to practice
To address this, the workshop includes a module on how to transform your self-confidence. It includes eye-opening insights on not just managing low confidence but actually changing how you feel about yourself in real networking situations.
Outcome
By establishing a useful and productive network you will be able to remain updated about new scientific developments, collaboration opportunities and new jobs as they arise. This will give you the best choice of opportunities, as you will be among the first to know, giving you a strategic edge over others!
The workshop will be very interactive. Expect to be challenged, expect to be asked questions, expect to participate!
Date and Time
- 10 and 17 November 2025
- 9.00–13.00 Uhr CET
Deadline for registration
27 October 2025
Format
Online via Zoom, link will be provided
Please connect with a working audio and video device and expect to actively participate in the workshop with your camera on.
Target group
Early career researchers (doctoral and postdoctoral candidates) from the ENGAGE.EU partner universities
Language of instruction
English
Instructor
Rob Thompson, RTTA.
Maximum number of participants
15
Registration
Please register until 27 October 2025 by writing to postdocs@uni-mannheim.de with your university e-mail address. Please note that we can only consider registrations sent from your university e-mail account to ensure affiliation with an ENGAGE.EU partner university. If there are more registrations than available places, the participants will be drawn by lot and informed by 31 October. Please find information on the processing of your personal data in our information on data protection (PDF).
This workshop, in collaboration with ENGAGE.EU and the Postdoc Career Academy at the University of Mannheim, is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg.