Learn to efficiently organize a diverse team of collaborators and create a mutually supportive environment that fosters constructive critique. This workshop presents a proven method for successful collaboration that begins with selecting your collaborators. You will learn how to determine roles and authorship order from the outset, and then to build consensus among collaborators step-by-step, by maintaining transparency about contributions and using outlines and other organizing tools. In an ideal collaboration, our colleagues provide constructive criticism that helps us catch mistakes and strengthen our publications, but few scientists are taught how to solicit useful criticism. You will learn techniques and communication skills to help you solicit useful critiques, methods for resolving conflicts between authors, and for gaining incremental “buy-in” from your collaborators with each paper draft. You will also learn how to help your team set and meet deadlines.

Dr. Kali Tal has worked as a scientific editor for the University of Bern since 2011. In 2017, she was hired to design the scientific writing curriculum offered by the Medical Library and teaches courses there and in the medical, dental, and pharmacy curriculum. She is also affiliated with the Institute for Primary Health Care (BIHAM) as an editor and a qualitative researcher. She offers scientific writing workshops in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The workshop will start with some theory on the role of emotions in conflict. Participants will develop an understanding of the impact of different emotions on interpersonal relationships, and how they can affect the escalation or de-escalation of conflicts. Then, we will briefly focus on empathy, compassion, and self-compassion and how they can for promoting resilience. Throughout the workshop, there will be interactive exercices such as practices for cultivating self-compassion, emotion regulation strategies that can be used in difficult contexts and also role play exercices to better understand emotional dynamics in conflicts.

Dr. Patricia Cernadas Curotto is interested in how emotion regulation interventions can promote conflict resolution in various types of conflicts, from interpersonal to intergroup contexts. In particular, her work focuses on how compassion training can help reduce tension in conflict and increase social cohesion. In parallel, she also works on promoting self-compassion and compassion towards others in school children. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva and the University of Montreal.

Organizing your scientific work is crucial for your success. Distractions and disturbances, the tendency to spend too much time on details, and the tendency to put off difficult tasks, such as starting to write your paper, are probably familiar to many researchers. This workshop focuses on planning and organizing yourself in your scientific project. It provides an overview of approaches and tricks for organizing yourself, working within deadlines, and developing an individual routine and behavior.The workshop is organized over three hours (including short breaks) to provide an overview of dos and don’ts for managing your scientific work, with the overall aim of encouraging participants to develop their own habits. 

Dr. Michael Bründl is a scientific group and programme leader at the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF and a trainer at ManageScience. Michael has been involved in personal and organisational development in an academic environment for around six years, designing and leading workshops and was most recently a member of the WSL 2035 strategy working group.

Networking facilitates success regarding our research goals and career. However, networking can also be tricky sometimes. Therefore BEACON 2024 is also dedicated to providing a low-barrier opportunity to foster academic interaction, create new ties, and initiate collaborations across departments and divisions. There will be different possibilities to reach this goal, for example during informal coffee breaks as well as during the apéro that completes the day. More important, however, will be the Academic Speed Dating, which will take place in an informal ambiance of a relaxed promenade after lunch. Over the course of 30 minutes, you will have three 10 minutes short academic speed dates with fellow researchers from other divisions. In matched pairs of two, you will be strolling through the beautiful Kannenfeldpark and get the chance to leisurely chat and exchange.

The conference offers a 1-hour Poster Session after lunch, which will be split into two parts: for the first 30 minutes, half of all presenters will be at their poster, and the other half of presenters will have a chance to go around and learn about the presenters’ works. Then we will switch: for the next 30 minutes, presenters become visitors, and visitors become presenters. The Poster Session is a chance to present your past, current, or planned research, so you can hand in preliminary data, real data, or also the study design. You will profit from individual feedback from our keynote speaker Ian Hussey as well as from peer mentoring and subsequent collaborations. Finally, there will be three poster awards, where you get the chance to win a prize for the best poster in a specific category, rated by your colleagues at the conference! More information on how to participate in the poster session and details about the poster design and poster awards can be found on Abstracts and Posters.

The panel discussion will emphasize this year’s conference theme: “How to Find Your Collaborators”. For this purpose, Ian Hussey, Kali Tal, Patricia Cernadas Curotto, Michael Bründl as well as the Panel Discussion Expert Fanny Lalot from the University of Basel will discuss the topic of collaboration in science, its impact and possible strategies to build your own network. The audience will be encouraged to participate by asking questions to the panel.