The 'careers in solar physics' session of the SPM10 meeting

During the SPM10 meeting held in Prague (Czech Republic) on September 9-14, 2002, a half-day 'young session' was organized on the topic of careers in solar physics. Several young researchers and senior scientists were invited to give oral contributions on the current advantages and difficulties attached to the current system for post-doctoral contracts. A scientist from USA also presented the american system for contractors, and an ESA representative presented the official position of ESA regarding funding researchers. From the talks as well as from the long open discussion which followed, it was widely agreed that several typical rules for EU post-doc contracts (their short duration, their mandatory mobility, their age limit and their administrative and financial difficulties) not only lead to serious problems in the private life of postdocs, but essentially can have serious drawbacks on the follow-up of long-term scientific developments, and could quickly result in a dramatic loss of expertise, from the scale of individual institutes to the European scientific community at large. Many participants and most of the young researchers naturally agreed that new longer-term, renewable and stable contracts are necessary. In order to create such types of contracts, several fund raising initiatives achieveable by the scientific community were discussed. The development of better public outreach initiatives on the European scale was a possibility which federated most of the participants. The resulting conclusion of this session were transmit, ted to the new board of the Solar Physics Section of the EAS/SPS.