The second part of REPARES Spring school on transferable skills for researchers was held on April 26‑28, 2021. It had three parts: career management, negotiation skills, and research and grant proposal writing skills.
The first day started with a brief introduction of the REPARES project and practical information to make participation easier. The whole day was devoted to Career management with two speakers, Lukasz Drewniak from the University of Warsaw (UW) and Ondřej Beneš from Veolia water CZ. The first speaker, Lukasz Drewniak had a presentation on "Biotechnologies in environmental protection - how to couple science with business" centered on his experiences on how to make your spin-off, what difficulties he faced during this process and some recommendations on what to do if faced with the same situation.
After that, the lecture of Ondřej Beneš commenced on "Career management/development in the water sector," showing the participants their options regarding a career in the water sector. Ondřej prepared a series of questions that could help participants make their minds and ideas for future personal development.
The second day was devoted to negotiation skills and effective email communication.
Jana Chaloupkova from Tavia (CZ) presented negotiation skills, and her insights were fascinating and mentally stimulating. The participants learned the different negotiation styles (competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating), how to deal with them, and use them effectively. During the assignments, participants were divided into five breakout rooms depending on their preferences regarding the negotiation styles. During this session, participants discussed how to deal with people using their technique of choice and the pros and cons of that style.
During the second lecture of day 2, Olga Strnadova (ACZ Courses, CZ) presented the critical tips and tricks for effective email communication.
The third final day of REPARES spring school was solely devoted to granting application and research proposal writing skills. The whole day was spearheaded by TU Delft, headed by David Weissbrodt with the help of Jaga Schreiber (Research Funding Advisor at TU Delft) and Janine Pforr (Project Officer at TU Delft). They organised and worked with project advisors from each partner university/country: UCT Prague, CZ (Karolína Friessová and Hana Štěpánková), TU Delft, NL (Anne van de Poel), UCP, PT (João Cortez, Ivone Vaz Moreira), AAU, DK (Kristian Bering), and UW, PL (Paulina Brodacka, Laksz Dzeiwit).
During the first part of the session, an introduction to grants and their diversity was discussed. Next, Jaga and Janine presented insights into personal and collaborative grants. After the break, all project officers discussed essential hints and advice on applying for grants from a grant/project management point of view with the specific impact for each country participating.
During the last session, participants were divided into breakout rooms based on their grant application interests and requirements: breakout room 1: individual grants, breakout room 2: international grants and going abroad, breakout room 3: collaborative grants. Participants discussed the advantages and disadvantages of different grant proposals and how to make your grant more interesting for selection. After this session, David Weissbrodt concluded the grant application and project proposal skills section.