Buoyed by the success of its first lobbying campaign and its newly established contacts with Brussels, the CDC wanted to explore routes to develop more effective lobbying. Taking advantage of the presence of Marc Kirschner as a scientific keynote speaker at the 2003 congress in Dresden, the CDC invited him to speak at its Open Floor Debate. Professor Kirschner was President of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) during 1990–1991 when it began to lobby the US government.

Kirschner described how he and a small group of high-ranking molecular cell biologist colleagues were able to lobby the US government for increased funding. Also, by creating a ‘caucus’ of appropriately targeted lectures for members of the senate and their staff, they were able to increase the visibility of the biological sciences and bring home their social and economic importance for the USA. These are lessons we have yet to apply to our situation in Europe, but that we bear in mind for future ELSO and CDC activities.

The 2003 session also invited speakers from Eurodoc, the Marie Curie Fellows Association (MCFA) and the Centre of Excellence Women in Science (CEWS) to talk about the problems faced by graduate students, postdocs and woman scientists in Europe. You can see their PowerPoint presentations:

Shuo-Wang Qiao (Institute of Immunology, Rikshospitalet University Hospital, Oslo) for Eurodoc
Eurodoc: the council for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers

Stephan Hülsmann (Institute of Hydrobiology, Dresden University of Technology) for the MCFA
Problems faced by postdocs

Isabel Beuter (University of Bonn) for the CEWS
Policy, Career Structure, Expectations: making a difference to European science