Hurry up: register for a seminar on the working culture in Norway

boardmember / / Events, PhD Courses

NTNUs International Researcher Support (NIRS) invites the international academics to the seminar/course “Working with Norwegians”.

 

Date: Tuesday 27 October 2020 at 16:30

Duration approx. 4,5 h.

 

This will be an online seminar (more information after the deadline)

 

Limited places. Registration is required, please contact: Iuliana Hussein (iuliana.hussein@ntnu.no). Please specify your name and affiliation with NTNU.

Deadline for registration 23 October 2020. You will receive a confirmation and a link to the meeting after the deadline.

 

Course description:

Would you ever play chess without knowing the rules? Being in Norway without awareness of the cultural codes is like playing chess without knowing the rules, you might make mistakes.

 

“Working with Norwegians” is a course that will help you crack the hidden codes of Norwegian workplaces and social life. It explains how Norwegians think and act in different situations, both at the university, in a business setting and at home. It highlights typical scenarios in which cultural differences come to the surface, and you will learn what Norwegians expect from you.

 

The aim of this training is to make you more confident on how to behave in Norway and to reduce the risk of cultural misunderstandings. Typical feedback from these sessions is that misunderstandings and mistakes made in the past could have been avoided if they had participated earlier.

 

The course is conducted by Karin Ellis (CEO of Ellis Culture)

Semester Kickoff with DION (Kahoot and Pictionary)

boardmember / / Events

Welcome back everyone! Summer is almost over, and we are off to a start of a strange and exciting new semester. By now most of us are used to doing things virtually (even if we are super tired of it), and just to make sure everyone is safe (considering the recent upsurge in cases), we will be conducting this semester’s kickoff virtually.

We will start off with some friendly digital catch-up, and proceed to a competitive but still sorta’ friendly Kahoot competition, followed by Pictionary. Winners of both the games will be awarded gift cards. This event is open to PhDs, Postdocs, and temporary scientific staff at NTNU across all the three campuses! (Newly employed candidates are encouraged to join, since this is a good opportunity to build a friendly network and have a chat with their fellow employees).

When? 28th of August, 6 p.m,  Norway time.

Where? Online, on Zoom platform. The link for the event is here.

Looking forward to catching up with all of you!

COVID-19 extensions for temporary staff: fill out our survey

boardmember / / COVID-19
To help us assess the situation of PhDs, post-docs and temporary scientific staff as regards to COVID-19 extensions of their contract, DION has joined forces with SiN  and with its fellow organizations across Norway to run a short survey on this issue. The information is collected anonymously but will be vital to help us understand your situation and advocate for better solutions. Therefore, please take a few minutes to fill out this survey before Fri. September 4th.

Transdisciplinary life sciences – a Digital Life Norway course

boardmember / / PhD Courses
The Digital Life Norway Research School is arranging the course “Transdisciplinary life sciences – a Digital Life Norway course” this fall. This course is for all Phd students and postdoctors who want to learn more about working on transdisciplinary research projects within biotechnology and the life sciences. The course is approved as an official NTNU-course worth 7.5 ECTS. The first plenary meeting takes place in Trondheim late August, then the students will work on their projects before the second plenary meeting in October. You can read more about the course here:https://digitallifenorway.org/no/dlnrs/courses/transdisciplinary-biotechnology

Coronavirus situation at NTNU and temporary scientific staff – update from the unions

boardmember / / COVID-19

In May 2020, we reached out to the unions present at NTNU to share your views on the situation of temporary scientific staff further to the coronavirus situation and related NTNU’s response. You can read their statements below.

As the situation is evolving, we hope to maintain an open channel of communication with unions regarding the case of temporary scientific staff and we will regularly update this page with more information as they become available.

Statement from Forskerforbundet

“Forskerforbundet (NAR) are concerned about the situation for postdocs and temporary researchers due to corona. NAR at NTNU have addressed these issues on several occasions in meetings with Rector. We have especially emphasized the need for guidelines for extension of postdoc positions. We also underlined this need in a recently interview with Universitetsavisa. We have been informed that NTNU soon will be ready to discuss possible guidelines with the unions. In addition, we are answering questions from individual members related to this. Our main advice is to document any delays caused by corona.

We will also work to secure that international employees with contracts expiring this Spring will not be forced to go back to their home country if they do not have access to proper health services there. The consequences corona might have on research funding is also something we are focusing on. Until now we have not received many inquiries related to this, but we expect that problems related to funding might occur in a longer time frame. 

NAR at central level is working with the same issues. The President of NAR has sent a letter to the Ministry of Education and Research, strongly encouraging them to establish temporary national guidelines for extension of postdocs and PhDs. Other activities related to the corona situation involve webinars for members to keep them informed about their rights. NAR organized a webinar for PhD and Postdocs in the beginning of April, and we plan a similar event in June. 

We appreciate that we can have this kind of dialogue with DION in these special circumstances.”

 

Statement from Akademikerne NTNU

“Akademikerne NTNU has throughout the Corona-crisis expressed concern towards the work-situation of the temporary staff and brought this faculty group on the agenda of meetings concerning the handling of the Corona-crisis. We have multiple times proclaimed that the postdocs and other temporary faculty are left out of the discussions. As of now, only PhDs meeting the requirements stated in “Extention due to the coronavirus pandemic for PhD candidates” at Innsida are eligible for an extension. While postdocs and other temporary employees cannot apply for an extension, we are pleased that NTNU has focused on extensions for PhDs which have the most pressing schedule to produce results. With that said, Akademikerne wished for a less strict guideline for an extension.

Akademikerne-NTNU is always there for its members and will continue to promote the temporary staff of NTNU. We do not have any member-events planned right now, but we are available to help our members both regarding difficult situations that can occur as a result of the Corona-crisis and for other inquiries.”