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CTLS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COURSE FOR CORE FACILITY STAFF


Core Facility Staff can find themselves in new roles that demand a broad set of skills that they have often not been traditionally taught in their academic career. Transitioning into these roles, handling multiple projects simultaneously, having a service and team-oriented mindset and dealing with users are some of the challenges people typically face in this position. 

CTLS in collaboration with hfp consulting, a group specialised in supporting scientists to improve their leadership and management skills, have developed an intense, interactive, and highly specialised course that addresses these challenges. The course has been developed and enhanced, by hfp consulting, after working with many core facility members and managers across different institutes all over the world. Since 2013, this type of course has been well received by many participants and organisers. 


Course timeline: 

Week 1: 28th and 31st May 2024  

Week 2: 4th and 7th June 2024 

Week 3: 11th and 14th June 2024

The online course will take place in six half-day sessions. Each session will last 3.5 hours (including a break), from 09:30 – 13:00 CEST. 

Eligibility: 

The course is mainly reserved for technical or scientific facility staff without managerial responsibilities and members of the CTLS Association.  

Maximum number of participants is 16. 
4 places are reserved for non-CTLS members. 

Course Fees:  

Total cost of the course: €1160  

Successful applicants who are CTLS members will be offered €500 as financial support


Selection Criteria and How to Apply: 

Due to the restricted number of available places, CTLS will select applications from highly motivated candidates. Please apply using the ‘Click here to apply’ link below. You’ll be asked to include: 

  1. A Motivation Letter, where you should clearly indicate why are you applying for this course and the relevance of the course for your future career and your home Core Facility; 
  2. Short CV (max 2 pages)
Further course information:  

What is unique about this course? 
The highly interactive and applied training is focused on day-to-day challenges Core Facility Staff encounter and goes beyond the teaching of abstract concepts. Within the framework of the training, participants will work interactively towards practical solutions for their real-life cases. Goals: In this workshop, participants will: Develop an awareness of their role as core facility staff Acquire new technical and complementary skills to master challenging professional situations Improve their communication skills to maintain productive relationships with users and colleagues Be equipped with tools to handle multiple projects at the same time Strengthen their network within the community and foster cross-facilities collaboration Be encouraged to establish and maintain a peer support group Topics:Transitioning into the role of a core facility staff Basics of communication Creating and maintaining a productive collaboration with users Time Management Dealing with multiple projects in a service-oriented manner Key listening skills Understanding different personalities Dealing with conflicts constructively Working in a team These topics will be approached practically. Short theoretical inputs are followed by extensive exercises. The goal is to increase the impact of the training by immediately applying the taught concepts in partner exercises, case studies and simulations during the workshop.  The course language is English. 

Working Style of hfp consulting 
As their training philosophy is based on ‘learning by doing’, they strive for a highly interactive learning environment in which participants actively engage in discussions and exercises They will balance teaching and practical exercises in pairs or small groups They will work with real life cases of participants To mitigate the effects of remoteness, they will include playful elements and be tolerant with the small disturbances in a home office They will use the resources of the video conferencing platform Zoom. Each session will be moderated by two trainers, enabling a process-oriented and interactive experience which fulfils the high standards of our training courses Materials produced during the workshop will be made available to participants.