- Target audience: Postdoctoral researchers from IRB Barcelona
- Duration: Two full days*
- Dates: October 19 and 20, 2026 (09.30-17.30 each day)
- Place: to be confirmed (in person at IRB)
- Trainers: Dr Lisa Saemisch and Dr Tobias Maier
*Assistance to both sessions is mandatory.
Presentation
Postdoctoral researchers are a somewhat forgotten collective in the research system, despite their key role in running research projects and in managing and training junior staff. The goal of this workshop is to address their changing needs as increasingly expert researchers with growing responsibilities and pressures. Participants will gain a renewed perspective of some key transferrable competencies for the postdoctoral research stage and beyond. The over-riding principle of this training is awareness-raising: to develop a conceptual framework to understand and deal with some of the most common challenges that postdocs face, and to acquire a set of practical tools and methods that are immediately applicable in the participants’ working environment.
Registration: To register, please fill out the following Google form. Registration will be confirmed by email.
If you are registered to participate and finally cannot attend, please send an e-mail to academicoffice@irbbarcelona.org.
Programme
Workshop Content
• Review of core communication skills
Communication is the key to everything we do as researchers, whether it’s transmitting our science or managing our colleagues. Interpersonal communication will be a recurring thread throughout the workshop, and we will begin by exploring a model for interpersonal communication, how to give and receive feedback.
• Time and task management
How do you prioritise tasks to get important things done first? How do you plan your day to work effectively? Participants will learn intuitive tools to gain efficiency, as well as how to set realistic medium-term goals, and review digital helpers to manage their work and collaborate better.
• Motivation
Science can give us many reasons to feel demotivated, with consequences for our work and career progression. We will work with a simple framework for understanding motivation, both in ourselves and in colleagues we supervise.
• Delegation
As researchers work on and lead ever-larger projects, we become increasingly responsible for the work of other team members. In this module, we will learn an intuitive model for delegating effectively, and following-up on progress.
• Understanding Conflicts
This workshop has an important communication focus, with tools to facilitate working relations through good communication. However, conflicts inevitably arise in any working environment, and are a cause of stress and lost productivity. We will present a model to understand how conflicts develop, and a powerful tool for addressing them through direct, appreciative, de-escalated communication.
• Negotiation
Researchers increasingly find themselves in situations where negotiating well is essential for professional success, including for roles and workload on collaborative projects, authorship on publications, or start-up package for career moves. In this module, participants will practice a proven framework for negotiation, with the goal of maximising satisfaction for all parties.
Training Methods
This is an interactive workshop with extensive elements of partner work, exercises, group discussion. We use innovative training methods and proven didactic techniques, and place special emphasis on sharing and learning from the participants’ own expertise and experience. To increase impact and applicability, we work with real-life cases from the participants whenever possible. We may ask participants to reserve time for individual preparatory work before the workshop.
Speakers
Dr Lisa Saemisch PhD is a physicist by training, with a PhD in nanophotonics, and over 7 years of experience as a researcher. Her work has been published in several high-impact journals and she has presented at more than 10 international conferences, always eager to explain sophisticated scientific concepts in a very simple way. She has extensive experience in teaching students and has developed a passion for helping her fellow scientists improve the content and delivery of their presentations, their paper-reading skills and consulting them about what the future holds for a scientist.
Dr Tobias Maier PhD is head of the Seminars Area at the National Institute for Science Communication in Karlsruhe, Germany. He has a PhD in biochemistry and a ten-year track record in academic research, funding acquisition, and publishing in high impact journals such as cell or science. He has extensive experience as a trainer at workshops for scientists on diverse topics, including scientific writing, online science communication, career development, leadership, and other transferable skills.