The document discusses ideas for helping young academics develop their professional networks abroad. The three favorite ideas are: 1) Creating an academic exchange program that promotes cooperation between universities by exchanging graduate students and professors. 2) Developing an "academic couch surfing" system to foster deeper bonds by hosting visiting scholars in their homes. 3) Strengthening university career and international centers to better assist students with developing academic careers and networks through exchange programs and connecting professionals.

1. PROBLEMSTATEMENT:
Youngacademicinsocialscienceslookingforanacademic
position(abroad)needsawaytodevelop/strengthenhis
academic/professionalnetwork(abroadandathome)
becausethatisawaytodevelopprojects,findpositionsand
startanacademiccareer.
BARBARA OLIVEIRA

2. 33 IDEAS
• Giving Linkedin an academic character
• Creating an app to hook up academics working in similar fields, my keywords
• Having blind date clubs
• Creating a pawl list using research areas keywords
• Having network events at Associations/Conference dinners and events
• Official research institutions making calls for tender requiring at least X% participation of researchers with less
than 5 years experience
• Same institutions having open tenders with individuals applying to be part of a team they never met
• Asking Professors to use their network
• Having mentorship schemes through an organization or website
• Contact the professors that wrote the articles that I find interesting/relevant
• A 5 year old would go out and play
• A 5 year old would just call schools and ask for references
• Research the university of interest address book and contact people cold turkey
• Travel to the city/country and schedule a few visits.
• Go to events
• Create a secondment/exchange program that would promote the exchange of graduate students pursuing
careers in Academia – MOST DISRUPTIVE
• Have a database for exchange programs between/among research centers across the world
• Have countries celebrate more bilateral/multilateral academic cooperation agreements that also promote
visas for international academics

3. 33 IDEAS
• Create more 2 years recently graduated post-doctoral programs that promote residential stays of 6 months
abroad (between 2 universities).
• Strengthen the international centers of various universities and have these centers promote active
networking
• Have career centers become better at helping students develop an academic career and actively network –
BOTH IDEAS COMBINED, MOST PRACTICAL.
• Promote more free language training for non mainstream languages (languages other than English, Spanish,
French)
• Use linked in to connect with people
• Use Nation Research Councils – of various countries - database to find professors contacts by area of interest.
• Ask the help of the Embassy of the country where I’d wish to study/work.
• Find cheap or costless ways of travelling so that people could meet people face to face without it costing a
fortune.
• Have couch surfing systems only for academics – FAVORITE IDEA
• Have websites where academics can find each other based on their common interests other then their
academic interests (hobbies, sports, travelling, reading)
• Have a website where people visiting a foreign city can have dinner with a local academic.
• Attach bonuses at universities with the amount of network/international connections someone makes
• Change the system that academics accumulate points for publications
• Create arts clubs at schools in which academics get into amateur theater, amateur rock bands, ways to meet
people through arts, among peers.
• Create more grants to promote exchange of professionals

4. 3 FAVORITE IDEAS
• The most disruptive is creating a secondement/exchange
program because it implies much more cooperation that
what happens currently and universities being willing to
open up to “competitors”. The couch surfing system is my
favorite idea, because they would bring foreign academics
into each other’s intimate spaces: their houses! It would be a
great way to build deeper bonds and foster cooperation.
Strengthening the Career Centers and the International
Centers seem like an obvious step – low hanging fruits/win
win win scenarios that would benefit various students in
many ways. The Academic Career taken seriously could be a
new field of work for Career Centers and international
Centers would find new ways to be useful by exchanging
professionals and professors as well, in addition to
undergraduate students.