DRAFT: APECS perspectives on MEASO and priorities for future research

Authors and affiliation 

Introduction 

• The presence of ECRs within the Antarctic Science community (APECS, SCAR etc) 

Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are considered to be within 5 years of a terminal degree by the Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research (SCAR). ECRs play an important role in the work of SCAR and other scientific organisations and institutes. 

The current numbers of ECRs in APECS are 3154 members from 73 countries. Data from October the 1st 2019 (thanks, Juan and Cesar!). Svenja Halfter I believe APECS also has numbers just for Antarctic researchers? 

• The role of ECRs in MEASO - Policy forum, statistics from the conference, ECR prize winners (and what has come of these projects now e.g. published?), SOKI content and reviewers and leads/co-authors in the special issue 

Early career researchers were an integral part of the first MEASO conference, held in April 2018 in Hobart, Australia. Of 173 attendees, there were 57 ECRs (female: 36, male: 21). 

Comment from Alyce: 

I can provide information for my 2 presentations in which I won awards for;

1) is in review for publication

2) is in preparation for publication

feedback/testimonial - winning a presentation prize boosted my confidence in my research and presentation skills.  I feel much more confident talking to colleagues and mentors about my research, and I believe was instrumental in giving me the confidence in my presentations post-MEASO (one of which I won another prize).

• What are the opportunities and impediments for ECRs to participate in projects such as MEASO

Christine Weldrick : In response to "What are the opportunities and impediments for ECRs to participate in projects such as MEASO?" from the extended abstract, I'd like to share a little bit about my experience with encouraging ECR's to participate (either as authors and/or reviewers) in the MEASO biota pages. For the most part, most ECR's we reached out to were thrilled to be involved in the first marine ecosystem assessment of the Southern Ocean. For many of us ECR's, it is not often we get the opportunity to directly engage with such an expansive, collaborative campaign, and be granted acknowledgement for it. Many ECR's expressed that they'd never been asked to review a manuscript. However, on one occasion, one ECR I contacted to assist in reviewing needed more clarification about our motivation and asked, "Can I ask why ECR reviewers specifically? Looks like a good opportunity to review and I’m happy to help but often have a bit of a hang-up about ECRs being used as free labour." While I cannot deny that there are an unprecedented number of instances of ECR exploitation across a global scale, I don't believe this is the case with the MEASO project. This is the first, large-scale ecosystem assessment for a region that has never had a formal assessment. What we're trying to do is conduct it through community consultation, whereby every Antarctic/Southern Ocean stakeholder with an academic level of expertise can engage as much as they like. Our aim is that everyone who wants to participate gets to participate, and at the very least, hoping for small bytes of high-quality engagement from a large number of stakeholders, including–but not limited to–ECR's. In this instance, I was recruiting specifically for reviewers, not writers, although volunteer writers are welcome to participate. Both writers and reviewers will be acknowledged appropriately. I've never heard of a journal that pays reviewers for their time. While I'm not agreeing that this should be the status quo, the MEASO project simply doesn't have the resources to pay everyone who has agreed to be involved in all capacities. Here are a few more thoughts about the ECR Reviewer role:

• We have asked for ECRs because aims to be inclusive and not selective, ECRs are not always given the opportunity to review or contribute to projects so we’re encouraging them to give it a go and they will be acknowledged for this.
• Both ECR expert and peer reviewers are voluntary and we have no wish for ECRs to feel like free labour.
• As is voluntary and time commitments can be as little or as much as individuals can/want to give

Svenja Halfter I agree with Christine Weldrick. Right from the start many ECRs were included in the whole MEASO process, not because they are cheap labour, but to use their knowledge and to boost their profiles. I feel very lucky to have contributed to the species pages, even if it's just a tiny piece of the puzzle. And if we are entirely honest with ourselves, the progress of a MEASO wouldn't be possible without ECRs, mainly because it usually takes senior scientists more than 2 months to even answer an email, let alone reviewing and synthesizing literature. 

ECR perspectives (Main body of manuscript)

• ECR perspectives on the future of Antarctic science (Call for comments via twitter and MEASO ECR mailing list) 
  • What motivates ECRs to work on Southern Ocean ecosystems? (general interest, earth systems, social orientation, conservation etc.)
  • Research topics/approaches the ECRs are proposing, whats new?
    • What are the issues they see as being the most important
  • What are the types of opportunities are needed for ECRs to push these future directions and new ideas? 
  • What might be preventing progress. E.g. How much do you think middle career go-getters are impacting innovation and breadth of engagement.  

Comment by Alyce: I am not sure how to have this as a question but there is a lot of discussion in ECRs on whether they want to continue in academia or not.  Perhaps a question around; Are you or do you want to pursue and academic career?  And why or why not?

Answer from Cesar: Another example of the question around "what might be preventing progress" could be focussing it on ECRs' particular field of study. This way, we can get some ideas of what their research struggles are in their area. I am sure we'll find some interesting comments on that. But I also like the academic career question that you proposed Alyce Hancock

• Level of leadership provided by the community - are your ideas reflected in current research priorities

Comment by Cesar: In my field of research, which is Antarctic Law, this is tough to achieve. Policy communicators are desperately needed.

• Any other opinions, concerns, perspectives ECRs want to bring to the table (this is an opportunity to be constructively critical and raise your voice!)

Comment by Alyce: Paige Kelly ran a workshop at IMAS which was quite successful at working in this space, she could potentially assist us in ideas of how to do this?

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César S. Oliveira I will also join Christine Weldrick in making some notes here, this time about "Any other opinions, concerns, perspective ECRs want to bring to the table," also from the abstract. Personally speaking, MEASO was of great importance to me. I am now in the first year of my Master's Degree, studying a topic related to the Policy Forum, and I must say that my experience as an ECR helped me further decide that this is what I want for my career. I think it even helped me in achieving my study position. Firstly, I wanted to share that, during the APECS ECRs workshop, a couple of days prior to MEASO, a Google Form was sent to participants. Although most of the questions were focused on getting to know each other before attending the workshop, there is some interesting information about the ECRs. Among the questions (which were agreed during the preparatory work), one, in particular, might be relevant to this project:

What are you most interested in learning about during the MEASO/APECS Workshop? There were 32 answers to this question (participants were allowed to choose more than one). Here are the results:

23 (71,9%) Find opportunities to join large collaborative efforts
16 (50%) Learn how to make science accessible to policymakers
21 (65,6) Gain experience and knowledge for personal projects

Although this was a very informal survey, these answers give us an insight into some of the "perspectives and opinions" mentioned in the abstract. I found these particularly interesting because it was made before MEASO. With some imagination, we might be able to compare these results with the topics we are discussing today. For example:

1. Joining large collaborative efforts goes well in the "What motivated ECRs to work on Southern Ocean ecosystems."
2. Learning how to connect science and policymakers fits in the "proposing topics that ECRs think is important."
3. Gain experience and knowledge fit in "future directions and new ideas."

Final comments

• How to move forward - what are the key messages/actions for current/future projects from ECRs and for ECRs 

Secondly, and lastly, one perspective I wanted to mention about the importance of ECRs (mainly concerning future opportunities in the Antarctic community) is that most pioneers in Antarctic research (and this was mentioned in MEASO at some point) are now entering retirement age. This is an opportunity in itself for the ECRs, as sooner or later, we will have to continue the path of the ones we see today as "authority figures" or authors of "obligatory literature." Moreover, we, as "Early Career Researchers," will hopefully be in the peak of our career in 30 years from now, just about when the next revision of the Madrid Protocol will be on the negotiations forums in the high world politics. Our researches, present and future ones, will not only be in the center of the discussions, making pressure for our national policymakers but also will be responsible for shaping the priorities of the next great Antarctic Protocol. We can only hope that our actions will continue to keep the spirit of the community together in promoting environmental protection and inspire not only future generations but also future ECRs that are not even born yet.

References