TRAINING WORKSHOP’S CONCEPT NOTE
Context
The skills of researchers, teachers-researchers and technicians are mainly acquired during their university training and during exchanges with their peers. Whether they are in the North or the South, they must have a mult itude of skills. These are linked both to the technical and disciplinary aspects of their specialties, as well as to the transversal aspects of several disciplines. The quality of these skills then allows them to posit ion themselves in international research, to carry out regional projects or to develop their networks.
In the higher educat ion and research systems in Africa, South East Asia and Lat in America, inservice training for researchers and teacher-researchers is underdeveloped and often costly.
As part of its support mechanisms for the scientific communities of the South, such as the “Junior Teams Associated with IRD/Jeunes Equipes Associées à l’IRD” (JEAI), the “Internat ional Joint Laboratories/ Laboratoires Mixtes Internationaux” (LMI) or the “Research Allocations for a Thesis in the South/Allocations de Recherche pourune Thèse au Sud” (ARTS), the IRD is strongly involved in the skills development of researchers and teachers from the South, especially those from the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
The Capacity Building Unit (SRC), in close collaborat ion with these communit ies ARTS, JEAI, LMI and other local partners, is responsible for sett ing up transversal training workshops to respond directly and concretely to this need for training that is essent ial to the practice of the research profession today.
Objectives
Mult iple exchanges with IRD representat ives, as well as with researchers/teacher-researchers from Africa, Asia and Lat in America, reflect the great need for short courses to complement or update their knowledge. The needs ident ified range from technical/scient ific training to cross-cutting trainings. Several modules have gradually been developed with the support of the SRC and a catalogue presenting these training courses is being prepared:
– Writing scientific articles (operat ional FR/EN)
– Bibliographic research and its organization (operat ional FR/EN/ES)
– Management of a research team (operat ional FR/EN)
– Project writing and fundraising (in the process of being set up)
– Writing policy notes and research/decision-makers links (under development)
– Communication to the media (written/oral) (operat ional FR)
– Valuation of research results and transfer to society (under consideration)
Other modules deal with dimensions that are more distant from the researcher’s daily life, but are nevertheless important such as:
– The place of photography in science
– The place of scientific culture in society
– The pitch of a research project in front of a decision-maker
Target audience
The target audience for these workshops is composed of young researchers and teacherresearchers from South east Asia. As said above, the majority of them have a link with IRD through programs such as ARTS, JEAI, LMI or Another important dimension while organizing such training workshops is the regional one. One of our goals, thus, is to gather people from neighbouring countries so that that various contacts can be made, either through the workshop itself or via scientific common interests.