Over 60 participants attended CIB first ECR Networking Event!
Over sixty early career researchers from 23 different countries attended the first meeting of CIB’s ECR Network. The meeting was held online in two time slots to enable global participation.
Each attendee had less than a minute to introduce themselves and describe their research interest. A diversity of research interests was very evident, with sustainability and green construction, health and safety, housing in developing countries, digital construction, offsite manufacturing and Public-Private Partnerships amongst the most common themes being researched by network members. As a result there was ALOT of chat and exchanging of contact details using the chat function, emails or LinkedIn, and we feel sure these links will now grow & grow!
A major theme was the many impacts and implications of Covid-19, and as a result CIB will propose a new Task Group on this subject, to be approved by the Board in March. Watch this space for news of its first meeting!
The sessions finished with a discussion to glean ideas for future network activities, these included:
- A NEW Slack Channel to facilitate informal exchange of views, ideas and opportunities – Reach out to Debbie Gray for more details!
- An exercise to map the research interests of network members
- A web page to promote job opportunities with CIB members and match these with ECRs looking for positions
- Suggestions of key global names who members would like to see join our chat in CIB in Conversation
- Further ‘Meet the editor’ webinars with a focus on advice for ECRs on how to improve their chances of publication
- Targeting peer reviewer opportunities.
The next step is for CIB’s ECR Committee to review these ideas and agree an action plan. The next ECR Networking Event will be 22 March 2021 5pm EST Session #2 23 March 2021 5am EST when a number of Coordinators of the most relevant CIB Commissions based on the research interests of ECR members will be invited to come along and pitch their work programmes to recruit interest and participation from ECRs. This will be followed by the second in our Meet the Editor series, which will feature Dr Paul Chan of Construction Management and Economics in April (Date TBD).
