Life as a junior researcher
Junior Representation at the Department
The Junior Researchers Committee (JRC) strives to represent all junior researchers and PhD candidates at our department. It is crucial that junior researchers have a department-wide consultative body that can advocate for their rights and can communicate their needs and wishes to the rest of the department. The JRC acts as a bridge between junior researchers and the other staff members, and the junior representatives serve as a continuous point of contact for the juniors from their research group. The JRC actively improves working conditions, and organizes events focused on the PhD trajectory and career development.
In 2022-2023 the name of this committee changed from Junioren Vertegenwoordigers Overleg (JVO) to Junior Researchers Committee (JRC), which also included getting a new logo! The JRC also extended its tasks with one of the junior representatives now taking part in the department’s quality committee, the task force charged with ensuring the quality of the department’s research.
The pandemic has brought about some significant changes around working life. For example, we have the freedom to work from home most of the week; we see and therefore interact with colleagues much less than we used to. These changes also mean that juniors have different needs than before the pandemic, and bring new challenges. Finally, the advances in artificial intelligence, including the freely accessible ChatGPT platform, has changed the way we work. Some of the results below represent some of these developments.
To what extent do you like these JRC activities?
Results JRC survey:
Events we organized for junior researchers
Workshop ‘Supervisor Speak 101
Mastering Supervisor communication for Juniors’
Communicating with your supervisors can be quite challenging sometimes as a junior researcher. MGZ alumni Lea Jabbarian gave us a workshop about building a strong and productive relationship with your supervisors. We learned a lot about the art of effective communication with our supervisors, from setting expectations to navigating challenges.
Career day 2022
During the Career Day in 2022 Lex Burdorf (head of department) gave a presentation on post-PhD career options, within or outside science. We also welcomed speakers from different companies and institutions about their career paths after doing a PhD: Daphne Voormolen from Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management, Ivo Muskens from Gupta Strategists, Elleke Peterse from Open Health, and Mirjam Harmsen from RIVM.
Workshop ‘How to write an informative systematic review?’
Systematic reviews have become very popular in the past 30 years. Although most journals like to publish systematic reviews because they generate many citations, most are rejected. This workshop discussed how to write a meaningful systematic review that provides not only an evidence synthesis, but also insights into determinants and context that drive results. Lex used some examples from the department to illustrate how to get highly cited papers.
Additional events
We organized a 2-hour session during which we gave juniors the opportunity to focus on just writing, without distractions. Juniors could join in person or online and we would start the session by verbally dedicating our aim for the next two hours. After that, everyone would get in ‘the zone’ – it was difficult to get distracted with everyone so focused. At the end we might have a brief chat about how it went; the feedback has always been positive.
Writing groups
Other events that were organized were a PhD day and workshops about Microsoft PowerPoint, group model building, acquisition, visually presenting your results and ‘How we decide about our health’.
Do you use Chat GPT in your work?
Juniors use ChatGPT for several purposes:
- Writing, e.g. getting inspiration or checking grammar
- Writing and checking code/help with programming
- Asking (statistical) questions or checking work
Desk sharing
The desk-sharing policy works well for most juniors, as it is a good opportunity to meet colleagues from other sections. However, it also comes with some technological and ergonomic challenges.
See how collegues think about the desk-sharing policy:
Does the desk-sharing policy work well for you / to your advantage?
