Career perspectives.
HypoTRAIN will enhance the Early Stage Researchers’ (ESRs) perspectives for intersectoral careers in two ways. First, the ESRs will be exposed to players from various professional areas (e.g., consulting, regulation, journalism, engineering) throughout the ETN activities. They will learn to effectively interact with representatives of these players and to take their specific perspectives into account, thereby enhancing their capacities for intersectoral mobility. And second, the strong involvement of partners from the private and regulatory sector will enhance the ESRs’ perspectives on their own future occupational area by providing them with role models and a wide personal network of intersectoral contacts. Moreover, the inclusion of non-academic partners at the highest level and a dedicated ATC will guarantee that the ESRs are exposed to entrepreneurial ideas and innovation processes already early in their career to gain insight into the processes required for transforming innovative ideas into a successful product or service. ESRs will raise their profile by presenting achievements to a broad audience at network workshops, conferences and other occasions.
Career pathways
HypoTRAIN will improve the scientific basis to a number of practical and applied problems relevant on the European scale. This will maximize the future career perspective of its ESRs in a number of specific fields of activity, including (but not limited to):
- River basin management plans developed by regulating agencies in collaboration with environmental engineering and consulting firms are a central tool for reaching and maintaining a good chemical and ecological status of rivers as required by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). HypoTRAIN ESRs will be future experts for a more holistic design of restoration measures and management plans.
- River water is an important source for drinking water in many parts of the world. Based on the mechanistic understanding of process interactions and the experience gained in assessing self-purification processes, ESRs will have crucial knowledge for drinking water producers and the respective regulating authorities. They will also be qualified to assess and predict effects of restoration measures on drinking water production, which sometimes can be unexpected.
- Assessing the fate of an organic chemical is an important parameter for its authorization, e.g. under the REACH-directive. Knowledge on tools for deriving transformation kinetics and pathways in situ and how to integrate these findings into integral water quality models will be an asset when competing for positions in regulating authorities as well as in chemical industry and consultancies working on environmental fate aspects. Advanced analytical skills obtained through HypoTRAIN will open up additional career perspectives.
- The EU Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) indicates a strong political ambition to move from fossil based resources to renewable energy forms. Hydropower is one of the prime energy resources suitable for short-term regulation of the energy production, and consequently the SDS will put extensive and new constraints on the hydropower production and regulation of rivers in general. HypoTRAIN ESRs will be able to assess the effects of such pressures on the vulnerable river compartment hyporheic zone and will be competitive for positions in the respective authorities, engineering firms, and hydropower companies.