The Early Career Researcher Committee (ECRC), formed in August 2019, aims to provide a direct link for feedback between ECRs and the Centre leadership, as well to organise professional and social events for ECRs within the Centre. To achieve this, the ECRs decided on an inaugural committee of six members spread across various nodes of Exciton Science including UNSW Sydney, Monash University, RMIT and The University of Melbourne, so that all ECRs within the Centre can easily find a committee member. In choosing committee members we strove to ensure that the committee reflects the diversity within Exciton Science (including gender and nationality).

Since the committee’s formation, monthly meetings have been held during Exciton Science seminars, when most members are present in person. All other ECRs present at the workshops are invited to ECR committee meetings to ensure transparency and fresh ideas are injected. Through this structure the ECR Committee has provided the Exciton Science leadership with popular ideas for workshops and professional development sessions, many of which were integrated into the end of year workshop by Exciton Science staff, including a panel on mental health in high-stress work environments and a workshop on presenting scientific data. The committee has also discussed and reported the ECR perspective to the Exciton Science leadership, including ideas about environmentally sustainable catering, improving inter-nodal collaboration, and the feasibility of citizen science projects.

By overwhelming demand, the committee has also begun planning an ECR and PhD careers forum for both academic and non-academic career paths, which we aim to hold in 2020. Other ideas in the pipeline are a workshop on creating 3D graphics and movies, and a “72 hours of science” event which would bring together a group of ECRs from different nodes with the aim of writing a scientific paper on any topic in 72 hours.

Another goal of the ECR committee in 2020 is to organise social activities for ECRs. Ideas currently in development are coffee, chocolate, wine or beer tasting events run by experts on the science behind the production and flavour of each, as well as node-specific weekly social running groups.