Anna Solé Amat is very connected to nature. Maybe that’s why she studied Biology with a focus on climate change and biodiversity. Her career took her to England to work as a head ranger and then to the headquarters that the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture has in Uganda where she lived for four years and where she started training and doing projects with young people. Since 2016, she has been working in the academic and training office of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) where she has been the academic coordinator for three years.
At the CRG, she connects the most with students. She sees them grow throughout their stay and go far. In this third Career Month interview, we talk to Anna about what her job entails.
What is your job as academic coordinator?
I have different roles, but the main one is the coordination of the CRG doctoral student community. I am there during the whole process: from the recruitment of talent, with the dissemination of vacancies and interviews, until they deposit their thesis. In between, I coordinate the logistics of bringing them to the CRG and, most importantly, I follow up with them during the four years. This means talking to them to see how they are doing and helping them if something doesn’t work out. In the end, my job and that of the office is to support the student through training, annual evaluation surveys and personal contact. You could say that we help to train the new scientific leaders.
Without such an structured programme, we also support postdocs and master’s students who work at the centre. In the latter case, we advise them on CVs, PhD applications etc.
You mention that you are training the new scientific leaders, what do you mean?
In the academic office, we coordinate all the CRG training. For the last two years, we have also been in charge of the institutional training. Personally, what I am most involved with is the PhD course. It takes place in October, lasts one month and is compulsory for all incoming PhD students. Through this course, they essentially get to know the CRG because all the research staff present their work there. Afterwards, we give talks related to science and research. For example, we talk about data management, sex and gender dimension and ethics. In addition, we have a PhD kit with tools. Then, during the year we offer courses on many different topics or on request.
You are very involved with the students; how do you interact with them?
At CRG, there is a PhD council with seven working groups. These organise everything, among other things, the annual PhD Symposium and the PhD retreat, which is a two-day get-together where PhD students go to a sleep-away camp (casa de colonies) to interact, have fun, but also to do workshops on mediation or conflict resolution. They always invite us, the academic and training office, to join them. They take care of posters and leaflets for the symposium or the retreat activities, for example. We help them with anything they need in terms of logistics and training, but only if they ask us to do so. So, the interaction with them depends a lot on their needs and willingness.
Which are the profiles at the academic and training office?
We are a four-people team and most of us have a scientific profile, some even postdoctoral experience. But, it is not mandatory to have a scientific background because we usually do not teach the modules ourselves and, when we do, we do so according to our knowledge and experiences.
Is academic coordination a common service in research centres?
In many centres, not as such. They do have the service, but it is dispersed between departments. Sometimes, it is within human resources because, in part, it is a figure for attracting talent and, at the same time, for counselling and mediation. In fact, some centres have asked us to give a small course on the role of the academic coordinator. But each centre adapts the work to its own conditions. At the CRG, there has been a strong commitment to this figure. When students have left, they say that they did not realise of how lucky they were that this role existed, and that the interaction was so close.
What would you recommend to somebody that wants to work in academic coordination?
Have a lot of empathy but know how to control it. Also, they need to be aware that they cannot solve other people’s problems, that students have to solve them themselves. On a technical level, I would say that having scientific knowledge is useful, but not necessary and that they have to be open to explore new things.
What is your day-to-day life like?
Difficult to answer. I go with my to-do list, but sometimes other things come up and the day changes. What I do is take advantage of the two days a week that we work from home to read, write and prepare projects or ideas to develop. On the days I come, I prioritise face-to-face meetings and sitting with students.
Watching a PhD student grow and develop is one of the most beautiful things in my job.
Anna Solé (CRG)
What are the challenges of academic coordination?
The biggest challenge is that the problems seem very easy to solve from the outside. Sometimes doctoral students or research staff come to me and say ‘I don’t work well with this person or I don’t know how to explain myself’. Many times they sit down to talk and they end up reaching an understanding. We just give them the tools from the mediation courses we have done to make communication more effective. But, we don’t solve their problems, they have to do it themselves.
And, finally, what do you like the most about this job?
Seeing the progression of the students who come. As I am actively involved from the moment they arrive until they finish, I see how they are transformed at the professional and personal level; they gain self-confidence. There are students who are insecure when they enter and end up defending their thesis and they are overjoyed. Seeing them grow is one of the most beautiful things for me.
