Please note: due to the completion of the project, this website is now in archive status. Visit the new Blue Communities legacy website here for final outputs and any future updates.
16 June 2020
By Dr Mohd Aizat and Dr Mohd Iqbal, University of Malaya 

The Blue Communities Early Career Researchers Network (ECRN), aims to bring the young researchers' community together and at the same time provide a platform for information sharing, capacity building and supporting research opportunities through Blue Communities Pilot Project Programme. 

Members are encouraged to develop their research networks through group discussion or facilitated dialogue, with support and mentoring from Blue Communities' experts. Although this research network is currently made up of young scientists with multidisciplinary backgrounds from partner countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and United Kingdom), it plans to open up the membership to young researchers beyond the Blue Communities Research Programme.

As diverse as it is and to make sure that members from every partner country has the chance to nurture their leadership skills, ECRN co-chairs are elected through a polling system. Following the last ‘election’, the Malaysia Blue Communities team has been chosen to lead the ECRN starting January 2020, which was previously led successfully by the Philippines Blue Communities team. Dr Lim Voon Ching was elected as President initially, but later transferred to Dr Mohd Aizat and Dr Mohd Iqbal after moving to a new research role.

Five ECRN committees, namely Scientific Publication, Career Development, Public Engagement, Workshop & Training and Funding are being led by representatives from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam and United Kingdom respectively.

Workshops and training on developing proposal ideas and writing have been planned and will be handled by the Scientific Publication and Workshop & Training committees. Due to the CoVID-19 pandemic, online training or webinar is the preferred method of communication at the moment since international travelling is restricted.

To reach out to a wider research community and for easier engagement, ECRN will develop a Facebook page. Updates on recent activities, knowledge sharing and announcement will be shared on the page, handled by the Public Engagement committee.

To help young researchers gain confidence in managing grant applications and to have ownership over a part within Blue Communities that they can call “their own”, the Advisory Group decided to announce a small project fund in 2019 that all Blue Communities ECRs could apply for. The aim of the pilot project programme is to support young researchers in leading manageable, interdisciplinary and international research projects with guidance of the more senior project partners. This is also part of the Blue Communities capacity building commitment. Funding under this call is awarded in a manner consistent with the general guidelines for Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Blue Communities. This first round resulted in three projects funded with up to £5k.
 
In March 2020, application invitations for a second round of pilot project opportunities was announced. The projects need to be in line with Blue Communities engagement to support “the development, implementation and ongoing management of initiatives that promote the sustainable use of marine resources by multiple users, whilst protecting the fragile marine ecosystems and supporting the livelihoods food security, health and well-being of the people in these coastal communities”. Again, this call aims to support up to four international, interdisciplinary, collaborative research projects with a value of up to £5k per funded project. It is expected that projects will start in September 2020, have a maximum duration of one year and funded projects will be announced in August 2020.

For more news on the Blue Communities Early Career Reserchers Network (ECRN) then please click here.

ECRN website: https://bluecomecrn.wixsite.com/home

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