By Dr Giovanna Pugliese, manager of the NOVA-SKIES (NSKIES) Programme

The NOVA-SKIES (Skilled, Innovative and Entrepreneurial Scientists) programme provides training on development of soft and hard skills, innovation and entrepreneurship, and creates career opportunities to early-career researchers (PhDs and PDs) in the field of astronomy in the Netherlands. The programme aims to support the recognition of the competences of young astronomers, and allow them to become self-aware of their skills and of the constructive way in which they can transfer them in any career they decide to pursue. Once outside academia, thanks to the strong awareness of their values, our PhDs and post-docs become active STEM ambassadors in the society, and this represents an important goal of the astronomical field as a whole.

The programme has been running for 3 years, each year providing a 2-day training course, a 6-month mentoring program, and 3/4 webinars decided together with the participants, getting an average 4.3 score out of 5, in a survey taken among the participants of the workshop.

During the 2-day training course, several aspects of career development and transferring of skills for early career astronomers are covered, more specifically:

• Activities on the 15 entrepreneurial skills, what they are, which are developed doing research, which are relevant for the private sector, and how to improve them;
• The Business Canvas Model, what this is, how it works and activity on how this is actually also used in astronomy;
• Exercises on how to manage stress, and how to optimise time and soft skills to be more efficient both in the present job and in the job hunting process;
• Talks from astronomy alumni working in academia, in astronomical institutes (e.g.  instrument and data scientists), and in the private sector to understand what companies and institutes are looking for in their junior hiring;
• Lunch and dinner with invited speakers to discuss in a cozy atmosphere.

In the Netherlands, the programme is developed in collaboration with dotSPACE (our partner in the space sector), with whom we organised this rich programme.

The interaction between the experts in the public and private sectors, the astronomy alumni who agreed to be mentors in the programme and our participants helped the latter to create an active network for the development of their competences and to expand their career options within and outside academia.
For more information, contact g.pugliese@uva.nl