In the academic year 2024-2025, the "Academic Career Planning and Leadership" (ACLA) course continued supporting postdoctoral researchers within the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) disciplines at the City Centre Campus of the University of Helsinki. The course is designed for post-doctoral researchers who are planning to develop their independent research careers and build their own research groups. The fifth ACLA course was coordinated by HSSH Director Risto Kunelius, Vice-Director Pekka Mäkelä and professor Kirsi Pyhältö from the Faculty of Educational Sciences.
The aim of the ACLA course is to equip the participants with skills and resources to define and pursue the next steps in their career paths and thrive in the competitive landscape of academia. The course facilitates workshops featuring quest speakers with wide variety of expertise. The workshops provide pivotal information about academic career opportunities, building and leading an academic research group, opportunities and schedules for research funding, as well as UH research services and infrastructures. The multidisciplinary peer-environment gives the participants an opportunity to foster collaborative networks and broaden the scope of their research endeavors.
Intensive two-day workshop at Brussels
The fifth ACLA course concluded with a traditional excursion to Brussels to learn about European science policy and funding opportunities. On the trip, the participants got to meet and discuss with people who have first-hand knowledge about EU research policies for SSH fileds, lobbying, EU research funding management, and EU research-based policy-advicing. A two-day series of sessions was held at the facilities of Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK) with invited speakers from European Association for Social Sciences and Humanities
(EASSH), European Commission DG Research and Innovation, Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK), European Parliament Research Services (EPRS), European Parliament, and Helsinki EU Office.
The sessions included a variety of topics related to the themes of the course. The participants got a strong reminder of the need for a unitary front for SSH fields when it comes to public visibility and research policy, detailed presentation about how current EU research funding mechanisms work to advance the development of more interconnected EU-wide academic sphere, and an introduction to the the activities of EK in Brussels.
A special interest and a prolonged discussion were invoked by a session focused on the everyday practises of European Parliament Research Services (EPRS), one of the official tools in EU established to advance evidence-based policy making. EPRS is a research briefing service that functions as an intermediary between research and policy makers in European Parliament. The discussion addressed many questions such as how EPRS maintains political neutrality and what are the channels through which research can affect EU politics.
Another relevant perspective was given by a session with a post-doctoral researcher from University of Helsinki who had recently moved Brussels to work as a political advisor in the European Parliament. In addition to discussing another possible policy impact channel for their research, the ACLA course participants had an opportunity to ask questions about what it is like to make a career change and move to a position outside academia. Lastly, a session with a Senior Advisor from Helsinki EU Office introduced the freshly published EU’s AI Continent action plan, demonstrating the shift in EU’s AI policy from regulation to competitive and effective deployment of AI in all areas of society, including research.
In Brussels, the participants had also time for individually scheduled programs and meetings. Some had arranged meetings with professionals working in Brussels, and others had meetings with specialists from UH research support services Sanna Villikka and Taina Tuori, who were part of the delegation, with the course hosts Risto or Pekka, or among themselves.
Course experiences
Marking the end of this year’s ACLA course, the trip to Brussels also offered an opportunity to reflect on the course and give feedback for the hosts. In a common feedback session, the course hosts asked the participants to discuss the ACLA course and give critical feedback about the course and suggestions for future improvements. Among the recommendations was the idea of initiating Brussels trip planning early, ideally at the course's outset, to enhance preparation and engagement. Participants also expressed a desire for more customized course content, suggesting that career planning workshops and coaching could be tailored to individual needs or subgroups with similar career trajectories. A call for sessions offering a critical perspective on academia, funding structures, and university life was also voiced. While participants acknowledged the importance of not overly focusing on the problematic aspects of academic work, they felt a dedicated session could enrich the course experience.
Along with the critically focused feedback session, the participants had ample time to reflect on their course experiences in informal settings. The participants shared a variety of positive experiences and insights gained from the course. Many of them valued the opportunity to get to know other participants, twenty new fascinating people at the UH, and the encouragement to adopt useful everyday practises of creating and maintaining personal connections. For example, Juho Honkasilta noted that for him perhaps the most fruitful thing about the course was meeting the other course participants. “Seeing how researchers form different fields work on their own research topics made me more open to the possibilities of bringing multidisciplinary perspectives to my own research in the future”, Honkasilta described. Honkasilta is a University Lecturer at the Faculty of Educational Sciences, and his current research focuses on ADHD diagnoses and social inclusion in education.
Other widely appreciated aspects of the course were the workshop sessions with experts talking about their own careers. This was phrased by Kerkko Nordqvist and Karen Heikkilä, among many others, when asked about the course highlights.
Kerkko Nordqvist is a postdoctoral researcher at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and a prehistoric archaeologist currently studying prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies in eastern and northern boreal Europe. “What I liked most about the ACLA course was the workshops where people came to talk about their own academic situations and careers. People’s personal narratives tell a lot and give perspective”, Nordqvist recalled. “It is a funny but in a sense relieving thought that often career trajectories are shaped by random happenings”, he added with a laugh.
What I liked most about the ACLA course was the workshops where people came to talk about their own academic situations and careers. People’s personal narratives tell a lot and give perspective.
Karen Heikkilä is a grant-funded postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences; she joins the Faculty of Agricultural and Forest Sciences next January as a Marie Sklodowska Curie research fellow. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Canada and Malaysia, her research interests centering on indigenous cultural heritage preservation. “One of the best things about the course was hearing different experts talk about their own career paths, from the postdoc to tenure track stages, and especially to be able to ask these experts specific questions about their academic journeys”, Heikkilä explained.
The ACLA course had various things to give for different participants. According to Nordqvist, some of the ACLA course workshop sessions were more interesting than others. For example, he found it surprisingly instructive to hear about experiences from a film director working simultaneously with multiple kinds of professionals. “Working in and leading a film production crew seemed in many ways similar to my own work. Contemporary archaeological research is thoroughly multidisciplinary and requires collaboration with various kinds of people who are specialized in different tasks and have their own domains of expertise”, Nordqvist noted. On the other hand, the more generally focused workshop sessions, like ones about research funding, were personally not as useful to Nordqvist, often including information that he was already largely familiar with.
Heikkilä listed various other highlights as well. “I learned many new things about research budgeting and financing, especially about EU funding mechanisms”, she described. “I also benefitted a lot from the reflection exercises, which made us deeply consider our professional growth and career plans", she remarked. Heikkilä emphasized that there's much to gain from the course as long as one commits to, and actively engages in, each workshop session. She also noted that the Brussels trip provided a fruitful opportunity to learn about lobbying and policymaking in the EU, and overall, to witness "Brussels in action", i.e., as the seat of main EU institutions like the European Commission and European Parliament. “The trip was also a great chance to network with other scholars."