PROBLEM STATEMENT:Young academic in social sciences looking for an academic position (abroad) needs a way to develop/strengthen his academic/professional network (abroad and at home) because that is a way to develop projects, find positions and start an academic career.

BARBARA OLIVEIRA

33 IDEAS• Giving Linkedin an academic character• Creating an app to hook up academics working in similar fields, my keywords• Having blind date clubs• Creating a pawl list using research areas keywords• Having network events at Associations/Conference dinners and events• Official research institutions making calls for tender requiring at least X% participation of researchers with

less than 5 years experience• Same institutions having open tenders with individuals applying to be part of a team they never met• Asking Professors to use their network• Having mentorship schemes through an organization or website• Contact the professors that wrote the articles that I find interesting/relevant• A 5 year old would go out and play• A 5 year old would just call schools and ask for references• Research the university of interest address book and contact people cold turkey• Travel to the city/country and schedule a few visits.• Go to events • Create a secondment/exchange program that would promote the exchange of graduate students pursuing

careers in Academia – MOST DISRUPTIVE• Have a database for exchange programs between/among research centers across the world• Have countries celebrate more bilateral/multilateral academic cooperation agreements that also promote

visas for international academics

33 IDEAS• Create more 2 years recently graduated post-doctoral programs that promote residential stays of 6 months

abroad (between 2 universities).• Strengthen the international centers of various universities and have these centers promote active

networking• Have career centers become better at helping students develop an academic career and actively network –

BOTH IDEAS COMBINED, MOST PRACTICAL.• Promote more free language training for non mainstream languages (languages other than English, Spanish,

French)• Use linked in to connect with people• Use Nation Research Councils – of various countries - database to find professors contacts by area of interest.• Ask the help of the Embassy of the country where I’d wish to study/work.• Find cheap or costless ways of travelling so that people could meet people face to face without it costing a

fortune.• Have couch surfing systems only for academics – FAVORITE IDEA• Have websites where academics can find each other based on their common interests other then their

academic interests (hobbies, sports, travelling, reading)• Have a website where people visiting a foreign city can have dinner with a local academic.• Attach bonuses at universities with the amount of network/international connections someone makes• Change the system that academics accumulate points for publications• Create arts clubs at schools in which academics get into amateur theater, amateur rock bands, ways to meet

people through arts, among peers.• Create more grants to promote exchange of professionals

3 FAVORITE IDEAS• The most disruptive is creating a secondement/exchange

program because it implies much more cooperation that what happens currently and universities being willing to open up to “competitors”. The couch surfing system is my favorite idea, because they would bring foreign academics into each other’s intimate spaces: their houses! It would be a great way to build deeper bonds and foster cooperation. Strengthening the Career Centers and the International Centers seem like an obvious step – low hanging fruits/win win win scenarios that would benefit various students in many ways. The Academic Career taken seriously could be a new field of work for Career Centers and international Centers would find new ways to be useful by exchanging professionals and professors as well, in addition to undergraduate students.