ELSO’s Career Development Committee (CDC) is a group of around a dozen members at all stages on the scientific career ladder.

The CDC is working to improve the career opportunities for life scientists in Europe both through activities at the annual ELSO congress and through various projects running throughout the year.

At the ELSO meeting, the CDC organizes the annual ELSO Early Career Award, which recognizes the outstanding achievements of a young independent researcher working in Europe. At the meeting in Dresden in 2007, the CDC will also organise an Open Floor Debate on a tenure-track career structure for European academics; a Career Mentoring Lunch; a Funding Resources Showcase session; a session on Careers Outside Academia  and a 'Meet a Mentor' session giving young researchers the opportunity to hear about the ups-and-downs and career choices of one highly successful scientist. (See the Programme for ELSO 2007 for more details.)

In addition to the CDC events at the ELSO meetings, over the past  seven years the CDC has lobbied Members of the European Parliament about the creation of a career development award in Framework Programme 6, which contributed to the introduction of the Marie Curie ‘Excellent Teams’ award. It has established a constructive dialogue with the European Commission's Marie Curie programme,  and participated in conferences on career issues such as the Euroscience New science- and technology-based professions in Europe meeting in Bischenberg (France), the MCFA meeting Mobility of early-stage researchers in Europe in Lisbon (Portugal), several EC conferences on scientific human resources and careers in Europe as well as many high-level meetings about the European Research Council.

In 2005, the CDC created the ELSO Database of Expert Women in the Molecular Life Sciences curated by CDC member Karla Neugebauer, to help promote gender equality in Europe by improving the visibility of women accomplished in their fields.  It has also developed a  Feedback Form for people to comment on the representation of women as speakers and chairs at scientific conferences.

In these web pages, the CDC aims to summarise and report on its activities both at the ELSO meetings and throughout the year, as well as to provide a resource for young life scientists covering International PhD Programmes In addition, it will continue to develop these web pages as a resource for young life scientists covering International PhD Programmes, Students’ and Postdocs’ Organizations, Mentoring Resources, Funding Resources, Job Opportunities, Advice for Junior PIs and Women in Science. The pages are constantly under development and we welcome suggestions for additional links.