Early career Earth system scientists in the Latin America and the Caribbean region have been facing several issues, such as limited funding opportunities, substandard scientific facilities, lack of security of tenure, and unrepresented groups’ equality issues.
The Latin America Early Career Earth System Scientist Network (LAECESS) was created in 2016 as a collective action to tackle these issues. Now, the group has published an article on Nature Atmospheric Science and Climate to let the global science community grasp the current situation and hear the early career Latin America science community’s perspectives.
“This network has allowed us to connect and promote our research through collaborations that would be very difficult to achieve otherwise. This platform also offers resources, job offers, funding opportunities, events, webinars and other enriching activities for young researchers in Latin America, but also in Spain and other parts of the world”, comments the IDAEA researcher, Ana Mª Yáñez-Serrano, first author of the article.
The LAECESS Network has identified the priority actions to improve the scientific environment in Latin America and the Caribbean:
- Need for a regional open-access information repository
- Improvement of scientific communication
- Early career involvement in the decision-making process,
- Improvement of research funding opportunities
- Collaboration with other networks and initiatives
- Increase of women representation in Earth science careers.
Follow the LAECESS’ actions on Twitter: @laearlycareer and website: laearlycareer.wixsite.com/latinamericaecess
Yáñez-Serrano, A.M., Aguilos, M., Barbosa, C. et al. The Latin America Early Career Earth System Scientist Network (LAECESS): addressing present and future challenges of the upcoming generations of scientists in the region. npj Clim Atmos Sci 5, 79 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00300-3
