This year’s Annual Conference of the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators took place in beautiful Prague from 24-26 April. The event attracted 1.400 participants and provided a great opportunity for exchange and networking  of the research managers’ and administrators’ (RMA) community.

I had the pleasure to be involved in two poster presentions. In the first one, together with colleagues dr Lidia Tańska and Ewa Kaszewska from two other Centres of the International Research Agendas Programme (IRAP), we shared insights from organising research support in the Centres we are involved in. This was the story of the research support organisation at ICCVS – International Centre for Cancer Vaccine Science, University of Gdansk, ICTQT – International Centre for Theory of Quantum Technologies at the University of Gdańsk, and QOT – Centre for Quantum Optical Technologies at the University of Warsaw. The second poster presentation prepared together with Marta Dziedzic from the Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of UG & MUG showed some of the Gender Equality Plan (GEP) measures at the University of Gdańsk designed with input of several H2020 projects, such as STARBIOS2, ResBios and MINDtheGEPs. It is also a pleasure to report that I was also granted an EARMA Conference Speaker Travel Award.

The conference provided lots of inspiration for day-to-day management of projects, grant writing, and research support. It was also a good plaform to meet old and new friends, especially the RMAs from the SEA-EU Alliance.

Some of the insights will flow into the activities of the  Horizon Europe project CANVAS which as one of the aims targets the upgrading RMA skills and a better connection to RMA networks.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Izabela Raszczyk