The science behind soft skills: Do's and Don'ts for early career researchers and beyond. A review paper from the EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129

Shubhra Acharya; Mihai Bogdan Preda; Ioanna Papatheodorou; Dimitra Palioura; Panagiota Giardoglou; Vasiliki Tsata; Sanja Erceg; Teodora Barbalata; Soumaya Ben-Aicha; Fabiana Martino; Laura Nicastro; Antigone Lazou; Dimitris Beis; Fabio Martelli; Miron Sopic; Costanza Emanueli; Dimitris Kardassis; Yvan Devaux; EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129.

doi:10.12688/openreseurope.15746.2

The science behind soft skills: Do's and Don'ts for early career researchers and beyond. A review paper from the EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129

Open Res Eur. 2023 Oct 12:3:55. doi: 10.12688/openreseurope.15746.2. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Shubhra Acharya^{1

2}, Mihai Bogdan Preda³, Ioanna Papatheodorou⁴, Dimitra Palioura⁴, Panagiota Giardoglou⁵, Vasiliki Tsata⁵, Sanja Erceg⁶, Teodora Barbalata³, Soumaya Ben-Aicha⁷, Fabiana Martino⁷, Laura Nicastro⁷, Antigone Lazou⁴, Dimitris Beis⁵, Fabio Martelli⁸, Miron Sopic⁶, Costanza Emanueli⁷, Dimitris Kardassis^{9

10}, Yvan Devaux¹; EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129.

Affiliations

¹ Cardiovascular Research Unit, Department of Precision Health, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, 1445, Luxembourg.
² Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, 4365, Luxembourg.
³ "Nicolae Simionescu" Institute of Cellular Biology and Pathology, Bucharest, 050568, Romania.
⁴ School of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 54124, Greece.
⁵ Developmental Biology, Clinical, Experimental Surgery and Translational Research Center, Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, Athens, 11527, Greece.
⁶ Department of Medical Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, 11000, Serbia.
⁷ National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, W120NN, UK.
⁸ Laboratory of Molecular Cardiology, IRCCS Policlinico San Donato, Milan, 20097, Italy.
⁹ Laboratory of Biochemistry, Medical School, University of Crete, Heraklion, 71003, Greece.
¹⁰ Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation For Research & Technology Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, 71003, Greece.

Abstract

Soft skills are the elementary management, personal, and interpersonal abilities that are vital for an individual to be efficient at workplace or in their personal life. Each work place requires different set of soft skills. Thus, in addition to scientific/technical skills that are easier to access within a short time frame, several key soft skills are essential for the success of a researcher in today's international work environment. In this paper, the trainees and trainers of the EU-CardioRNA COST Action CA17129 training school on soft skills present basic and advanced soft skills for early career researchers. Here, we particularly emphasize on the importance of transferable and presentation skills, ethics, literature reading and reviewing, research protocol and grant writing, networking, and career opportunities for researchers. All these skills are vital but are often overlooked by some scholars. We also provide tips to ace in aforementioned skills that are crucial in a day-to-day life of early and late career researchers in academia and industry.

Keywords: Soft skills; academia; career opportunities; early career researcher; industry.; publication writing; research ethics.

Grants and funding

This research was financially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the grant agreement No [101016072] (A diagnostic test to improve surveillance and care of COVID-19 patients [COVIRNA]) to F.M, C.E, and Y.D; the Italian Ministry of Health (“Ricerca Corrente”, RF-2019-12368521) to F.M; The Italian Cardiology Network (IRCCS RCR-2021-23671212) to F.M; the Telethon Foundation (GGP19035) to F.M; the AFM-Telethon (23054) to F.M; the CardioRNA COST action (CA17129) to F.M, D.K, and Y.D; the Slovak Research and Development Agency (APVV-19-0540) to A.L; the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic (VEGA SR 2/0141/18) to A.L; the Greek General Secreteriat for Research and Development European Social Fund to D.B; the European Union and National Funds (Aristia I, zfValves -270) to D.B; the Fondation Sante, a scholarship (P.G.) from the Hellenic State Scholarship Foundation (IKY, Operational Program “Human Resources Development–Education and Lifelong Learning”, Partnership Agreement PA 2014-2020) to D.B; the British Heart Foundation Programme Grant (RG/15/5/31446) and Personal Chair Awards (CH/15/1/31199) to C.E; the EU Horizon project MEDIRAD (NFRP Call) to C.E; the Research England (Global Challenges Research fund 2019/2021) to C.E; the National Research Fund (FNR) of Luxembourg (Grant # AFR14566210) to S.A; the National Research Fund (grants # C14/BM/8225223, C17/BM/11613033, and COVID-19/2020-1/14719577/miRCOVID) to Y.D; the Ministry of Higher Education and Research to Y.D; and the Heart Foundation—Daniel Wagner of Luxembourg to Y.D.