next »

[kron3007]

Hello everyone, I just came across what appears to be an ideal position as a lecturer in Europe.  I just wanted to pick peoples' brains to get any advice/tips for customizing my application for this prupose.

Just for some background, the position is in a French speaking country.  The ad says that the applicant will ultimately need to learn french, but could start with English only.  Growing up in Canada I took several years of french class, so I have a basic foundation, but I am far from fluent.  I received all of my degrees from Canadian universities and am currently doing my post-doc at one.

I am interested to know if there are any things that European universities might be looking for that differ from North America that I might be overlooking.  I would also be interested in knowing how a European SC would look at a Canadian applicant (good, bad, neutral)?     

   

[kron3007]

One more thing, the position is in the biological sciences.

[qrypt]

You might get more/better responses by posting on the Working Abroad board.

[monsterx]

Although it might be too likely to out you if you told, different French speaking countries have different academic systems, and therefore asking about them in general might not yield the right kind of advice.  That's as much as I know about French speaking countries, so I'm not going to be able to help in any case, but good luck!

[sandgrounder]

If Belgium, they will expect the PhD in hand. It would be worth looking at early career people in the dept to get an idea of what level of publication is expected but generally I don't think there would be much difference. Belgians are very open to Canadians as the French are as mean to them about their French as they are to French Canadians. They are also much more tolerant of foreigners with less than perfect French! The downside of the Belgian Francophone system is that the universities have been seriously underfunded (mind you the same goes for French universities). You will be expected to show some knowledge of EU research funding as that is a crucial income stream. France is a more closed system but that is slowly changing. Switzerland is excellently funded, much more N American in outlook. This website might be useful for background information: http://www.eui.eu/ProgrammesAndFellowships/AcademicCareersObservatory/AcademicCareersbyCountry/Index.aspx
The Marie Curie Fellows' Association www.mcfa.eu used to have some really excellent resources on science careers in different EU states from people who'd postdoc-ed there as foreigners, but the link I had no longer works - still might be worth seeing if you can find anything on the website.

[kron3007]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.  The link was especially helpful Sandgrounder.

As you guessed, I was being vague about the country to keep a sense of anonymity, but you are quite right that it could make a big difference.  As chance would have it, the country is Belgium.