Marie Curie Conference (MC²)

Monday 10th April - Wednesday 12th April 2006

 

Guide for Rapporteurs

Thank you for agreeing to act as a rapporteur for parallel sessions at MC2. In order to help ensure continuity between sessions, I've put together a few pointers which may help you.

The parallel stream will take place as follows:

M Sessions : Monday 10th April, 15:00-17:00

W Sessions : Wednesday 12th April, 09:00-11:00

There have been two rapporteurs allotted for each stream to allow for times when one may be presenting. In order to act a rapporteur you are asked to stay within the sessions you have been allotted.

Each session will have a facilit ator from the Commission and research scientist as chair to be on hand to offer support (if needed). They will contact you before the conference just so you know each other. If you are in Manchester on Sunday 9 th April a meeting between chairs, facilit ator s and rapporteurs will take place at 18:00 in Conference Room 1 of Manchester Conference Centre ( Weston Building ).

The sessions will last for two hours with papers placed in half hour slots. The chair of each session will ensure that this breaks down into approximately the following:

1. 15 minutes presentation
2. 10 minutes discussion
3. 5 minutes to changes over between speakers

The role of the rapporteurs is to prepare a ‘horizontal' summary of the session they have been allocated to and present this summary briefly at the plenary session on Wednesday 12 th April 12:30-13:45.

Rather than précising individual papers this summary should focus on general scientific and mobility issues raised in the presentations and the discussion which follows them. These might include:

• Good examples of presentation technique
• How speakers successfully engaged with a multidisciplinary audience
• Possible synergies between different strands of scientific research
• Relevance of science to broader social issues
• Innovative approaches to methods or multidisciplinary research
• Successes and problems of working in a new team/institution/country
• General experiences of the Marie Curie fellowship

You may find it easier to take a strong lead from the direction of discussion after presentations as this may give a good idea of what an audience finds interesting about the presentations. You may also consider asking questions of speakers such as:

How would you go about explaining you research to a non-technical audience (reporter/funder/etc.)

• Is there potential for developing your research in a multidisciplinary manner? How might you go about this?
• What are the practical/policy/ethical considerations of your research as it develops?
• Can you tell us something about the team you are working with?
• What benefits/problems have you discovered moving into a new institution?
• How do you think the Marie Curie programme has helped develop your career/learning/research?

Each set of two rapporteurs will have five minutes during the plenary session to present their view of the sessions they attended. (8 sets of rapporteurs x 5 mins = 40 minutes). As such, you may find it easier to decide that only you or your partner rapporteur present. A rapporteur will also present on the plenary sessions. After all rapporteurs have presented discussion from the floor will be welcomed.

I would like to thank you once again for taking on this important role at MC2.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate in emailing me at Jason.Rutter@manchester.ac.uk.

Jason Rutter
Conference Chair