The Organization and Execution of a Postdoc-Run Symposium

Name: Sarah Mazzilli, PhD, Boston University

Date: October 2-3 2014

Location: Boston MA, USA

Website: http://futureofresearch.org

The adventure of organizing the Future of Research (FOR) Symposium began with Kristen Krukenberg and Jessica Polka, both of Harvard Medical School, bringing together a number of postdocs from various universities and biomedical science disciplines to meet and discuss the challenges early career researchers are facing as we move forward with our careers. There was great energy that surrounded the group: ideas and thoughts swirled; we identified topics that were common challenges; and discussed how to reach-out and engage the Boston postdoc community through the organization of a symposium. The group began by identifying leaders in the field, to participate in panel discussions, and get trainees involved and educated about the on-going discussion that Alberts et al. outlined in their 2014 PNAS publication "Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws" (Alberts et al., 2014).

As the ideas came together, major hurdles came into view of what might be involved in organizing a symposium, including: identifying funding sources, developing infrastructure to receive and spend funds, identifying and reserving space to hold the event, and all of the reservations for food and equipment that would be needed to run the event. These are not major challenges when symposiums are organized by one organization with a central source of funding and preexisting infrastructure, but the FOR organizers were from universities across Boston, making things more challenging. However once the venue was selected and secured (Boston University), the other elements began to fall into place. The intricate details of how our group waded through the murkiness of the academic financial systems are outlined in the Logistics of Organizing the FOR Symposium. Funding for the event was made possible by our own academic institutions and postdoc offices, industry partners like Novartis, and the National Academy of Science (Mazzilli et al., 2014).

The next major hurdle was developing the layout and organization of the schedule for the symposium. We needed to determine how we would present and discuss the major topics the FOR organizers identified as issues affecting the future of research in the growing field of biomedical research. McDowell et al. discuss in detail how the schedule was executed and the topics that were discussed (McDowell et al., 2015, see also The Future of Research Symposium). The schedule of the symposium was important not only for identifying speakers, but also needed to identify exactly what space was needed within the hosting institution and the duration that the symposium would run. It was decided that the symposium would span an evening and a full day with a keynote speaker, 2 panel discussions (led by individuals from various positions that support the development of junior scientists) and 4 postdoc-run workshops, that would run twice (giving participants an opportunity to take part in 2 different workshops), along with a reception and lunch. Finally once the speakers, topics, space and schedule were identified the FOR organizers received training in running the workshops (Mazzilli et al., 2014).

The last hurdle was to get participants for the symposium. We engaged participants through social media, university postdoc associations and word of mouth. Participants signed up for the free symposium using Eventbrite, which allowed us to not only identify participants but also collect information about the demographics of people interested, and gain insight into what participants thought were important challenges they were facing. Although nearly 600 people registered for the event providing the FOR organizers with valuable data, the free event left little assurance of the exact number of people we would have. This was a challenge in deciding how much food to order for the reception and lunch.

At last on Oct 2, 2014 the symposium had arrived, and the FOR organizers were excited and anxious to begin. Everything fell into place, speakers arrived, and approximately 200 participants flowed in representing most of the universities across Boston, with some from industry or other alternative scientific positions. Dr. Henry Bourne opened the symposium imparting his wisdom, experience and thoughts on the challenges we are facing. A panel of diverse leaders from academic and non-academic positions followed the keynote address, which supported and added to the insight of Dr. Bourne. Participants were then given an opportunity to ask questions and engage the speakers formally, which then rolled into the reception where participants from across Boston could talk about their experience with their peers and gain a sense of camaraderie. The second day of events began with the second panel and discussion, leading into the workshops, where all participants (now only approximately 125) were able to engage in thoughtful discussions on challenges and solutions surrounding the topics of training, funding, incentives and workforce sustainability. The information discussed and conclusions made can be found in the white paper put out by the FOR organizers (McDowell et al., 2015).

Although many challenges arose thought the planning, organizing and execution of the symposium (as detailed in the Logistics of organizing the FOR symposium), the support from all of our academic institutions and speakers allowed for a very successful event that was the first of its kind for Boston. It has led to the interest of postdocs in New York City, the Bay Area, and Chicago in organizing their own symposia in a similar vein, in the hope of educating and continuing to gain support in proposing and enacting change that will greatly impact the Future of Research.

References

Alberts, B. et al. Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws. PNAS 111, 5773-5777 (2014).

Mazzilli, S. A. et al. Logistics of Organizing the FOR symposium. The Winnower 1:e141697.77958 (2014).

McDowell, G. S. et al. Shaping the Future of Research: a perspective from junior scientists. F1000Research 3, 291 (2015).

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