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EMPOWERING YOUNG RESEARCHERS IN EUROPE: ENGAGEMENT AND PARTICIPATION PROGRAMME Eurodoc Conference 2015 Plenary session 3 – Initiatives Led by Member Organisations: Case Examples The focus of the session is on initiatives led by Eurodoc members. Each presentation will illustrate the diversity of the activities implemented by Eurodoc’s members at the national level, and how they have been asserting themselves, through their varied initiatives, as relevant stakeholders in discussions concerning early stage researchers (ESRs). Presentations from Eurodoc’s French and Bulgarian members will discuss how these specific needs regarding doctoral candidates (DCs) and junior researchers (JRs) rights and working or training conditions have been translated into concrete measures or proposals to be negotiated and/or enforced at the national level. A similar initiative will be discussed by a presentation from Eurodoc’s Finish member, which will highlight what their early stage researchers’ work group has been doing to identify the conditions and challenges faced by JRs in Finland and what they have been doing in order to improve them. From Belgium comes a slightly different but equally interesting story: how their national association has addressed ESRs networking and career development needs. 1. Association of Doctoral Candidates in Bulgaria: 2014 National Initiatives and Future Plans Vassilena Krasteva – ADCB (Bulgaria) Considering that the activities of the National Associations (NAs) cannot be reviewed without looking into the political situation of the country, we need to mention that 2014 for Bulgaria was a difficult year: three governments changed, two of them provisional. These events were in line with the start of the new Programme period 2014 – 2020, and every member state was expected to prepare their ‘’Partnership agreement’’ with the European Commission on the European Structural and Investment Fund investments for 2014‐2020 period. ADCB planned 2014 as the year for conducting structural dialogue and in this context the Bulgarian NA had representatives participating in preparing the ”Partnership Agreement of the Republic of Bulgaria”, the “Operational Programmes” and the Public Council which is consultative body for the Minister of Education and Science. ADCB initiatives for preparing the ”Partnership Agreement of the Republic of Bulgaria”, the “Operational Programmes” and the Public Council will be reported. 2. Improving Recognition of the PhD: Actions and Proposals from the CJC Anis Amokrane – CJC (France) Since its early days, the Confédération des Jeunes Chercheurs (CJC) is working hard on the recognition of the PhD as a unique and prestigious diploma providing a first professional experience in research. This valorisation is essential to improve the working conditions of junior researchers, and their following careers. Nevertheless, in France, PhD candidates are not always considered as first stage researchers, whereas the law explicitly says the opposite. This leads to severe consequences: lack of appropriate funding for research, of recognition of the scientific work and of related skills, obstacles to international mobility, reduction of the career opportunities, difficulties to fight against discriminations. Thus, the CJC works on the development of good practices on the following three main topics: 
The development of a lexical code referring to the PhD candidate as junior researchers (against the common usage of the term student). 
The results from a recent survey allowing to quantify and to highlight the diversity of situations and issues junior researchers face, which offer an appropriate weapon to fight the bad‐conduct against researchers. 
The ongoing analysis of the 40 self‐evaluation steps of the institutions in their improvement process according to objectives set by the HRS4R (Human Resource’s Strategy for Researchers) and the Excellence in Research label, in particular their political impacts on junior researchers. 3. Initiatives to Improve the Position of Junior Researchers in Finland Miia Ijäs ‐ FUURT (Finland) In Finland, junior researchers do their research under different working conditions: some are on a university contract, some work with a grant and some do their research while having another job. In addition, due to the present recession and organisational changes in Finnish universities, academic unemployment is a growing problem. Furthermore, the organization of doctoral training and PhD research was reviewed in 2011, when the national doctoral programmes were replaced by the requirement that all universities have their own doctoral school and programmes. Thus, the practices within doctoral programmes vary between different universities and are unequally developed. We will present some of the initiatives that the Finnish Union of University Researchers and Teachers (FUURT) and its early stage researchers’ work group have conducted in order to map out the varying conditions and main issues faced by junior researchers in Finland. One of these initiatives is the national survey for early stage researchers that we conducted in 2012. In addition, we will present how FUURT has tackled the issue of academic unemployment that was the main theme of the early stage researchers’ work group in 2014. One of our successes has been the reform that changed PhD positions provided by the Finnish universities from a grant‐based system into salaried positions. However, research funding, its uncertainty and short‐term nature are continuous problems for early stage researchers. The main issue for FUURT continues to be the demand for salaried researcher positions for both PhD candidates and post docs and their recognition as ‘true researchers’ (vs. ‘students’). 4. Focus Research: A Belgium Story François Waldner & Aina Astudillo Fernandez – Focus Research (Belgium) Focus Research is an organization of researchers that aims at providing support and services to the scientific community in Belgium. Our three overarching objectives are: Improving the communication between researchers in Belgium, reinforcing the dialog with political authorities in charge of research and enhancing the career development of young researchers inside and outside of the Academia. To achieve these objectives, we have undertaken two major projects. First, the project Doctorat.be tackles the issues of researchers' career development. It is funded by the regional government and currently employs three people. Second, the project PhDhub aims at organizing social events to foster interactions between PhD candidates in Belgium. It is composed of a dozen volunteer PhD candidates from all universities across Belgium. In this presentation, we will share the history of those two projects, the positive results obtained as well as the challenges in setting them up.