Author: Boris Cesnik

🎉 On November 12, 2025, the first-ever Vienna Postdoc Career Day will kick off, marking a unique collaborative effort among seven renowned Viennese institutions. This event is a powerful signal of our commitment to supporting postdocs in their professional development and opening up new perspectives. Our shared vision is to enhance the visibility, connectivity, and sustainability of the postdoc phase.

Join us for an enriching day filled with workshops, panel discussions, and networking opportunities.

REGISTER NOW! 👉 https://cc.lbg.ac.at/careerday

The Vienna Postdoc Career Day will feature inspiring role models, industry experts, and fellow postdocs from across institutions.

This event is open and free of charge for all postdocs from Austrian universities and research organizations.

📅 When: November 12, 2025
🔗 Register: Sign up for one or multiple sessions by November 4
📍 Where: Van-Swieten-Saal, Van-Swieten-Gasse 1a, 1090 Vienna

What’s on the Agenda?

Careers in Academia:

• From challenges to chances: Shaping your academic career with mentoring
• Role Models in Leadership: Insights from LExA Nominees
• Networking Lunch: Careers Inside Academia
•  

Careers Beyond Academia:

• From Academia to Industry: Identifying Your Transferable Skills
• Beyond Academia: Careers at Bain & Company, a global leading management consulting company
• Apero Networking: The expanded scientific community as an employer

Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity

Let’s make the postdoc phase more vibrant and connected. See you there!

🧠🍴 BRAINFOOD BREAK🍴🧠
Postdocs gotta eat too!

---

Dear Postdocs,

As part of the Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW), The PDO cordially invites you to the second lunchtime talk for our postdoc community to:

✔️ Get to know other postdocs
✔️ Discover other researchers’ projects
✔️ Mingle and connect
✔️ …and most importantly, HAVE FUN (and FOOD)!

🎉 2^ND EVENT – YOU’RE INVITED! 🎉

📅 DATE: Wednesday, 17 September
🕛 TIME: 12:00 – 13:00
📍 WHERE: Downtown, Central Building

🍽️ ON THE MENU:

FREE BUFFET LUNCH + Rapid-Fire Research Talks by two of our courageous postdocs who were brave enough to test life outside Academia in a secondment in industry and entrepreneurship!

🎤 FEED YOUR BRAIN WITH:

Sergio Lembo
Sixt Group, INiTS – Vienna, Austria

Rajesh Jethwa
Freunberger Group, Basquevolt S.A. – Vitoria Gasteiz, Spain

---

🔗 REGISTER BY SEPT 10^TH
We need to know how many stomachs to feed!
👉REGISTER HERE!!!!

---

Let’s feed our minds, our networks, and our bellies.
⏰ PROGRAM

12:00 – Welcome from PDO
12:05 – Sergio Lembo
12:12 – Rajesh Jethwa
12:19 – Q&A & Discussion
12:30 – FREE BUFFET LUNCH 🍲
13:00 – End

---

🎯 DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS LIKE OUT THERE?!

Has the experience changed their career trajectories? What was the outcome of their secondment? Did they enjoy the experience? Are they having a second thought about it?
📌 Great chance to ask questions to current postdocs in person!

---

See you on Sept 17^th! 👋

NEXT EVENT:

If you are looking for collaborator(s) or are already pursuing a collaboration and would like to present your project at the next Brainfood Breaks events in 2026, please sign up here!

PDO is delighted to announce that ISTA will be participating in the Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW) for the first time this year! 

 This international initiative involves institutions worldwide organizing activities for and with postdocs. PAW will take place from September 15 to 19, so please mark and block your calendars! 

PROGRAM

🧠🍴 BRAINFOOD BREAKS 🍴🧠
Postdocs gotta eat too!

The PDO cordially invites you to a brand-new series of informal lunchtime talks for postdocs to:

✔️ Get to know other postdocs
✔️ Discover other researchers’ projects
✔️ Mingle and connect
✔️ …and most importantly, HAVE FUN (and FOOD)!

🎉 1ST EVENT – YOU’RE INVITED! 🎉

📅 DATE: Wednesday, 16 July
🕛 TIME: 12:00 – 13:00
📍 WHERE: Downtown, Central Building

🍽️ ON THE MENU:
FREE BUFFET LUNCH + Rapid-Fire Research Talks by our amazing NOMIS-ISTA Postdoc Fellows!

🎤 FEED YOUR BRAIN WITH:

Louise Fouqueau
Barton Group, ISTA & Willi Group, Univ. of Basel

Andrea Navas-Olive
Jonas Group & Vogels Group, ISTA

Andrei Militaru
Fink Group & Hosten Group, ISTA

---

🔗 REGISTER BY JULY 9th
We need to know how many stomachs to feed!
👉 https://postdoc.pages.ist.ac.at/brainfood-breaks

---

Let’s feed our minds, our networks, and our bellies.
⏰ PROGRAM

12:00 – Welcome from PDO
12:05 – Fellow 1: Louise Fouqueau
12:12 – Fellow 2: Andrea Navas-Olive
12:19 – Fellow 3: Andrei Militaru
12:26 – Q&A & Discussion
12:36 – FREE BUFFET LUNCH 🍲
13:00 – End

---

🎯 DID YOU KNOW?
If your contract started after June 13th, 2024, you may be eligible to apply for the current NOMIS-ISTA fellowship call!
📌 Great chance to ask questions to current fellows in person!

---

See you on July 16th! 👋

NEXT EVENT: September 2025

If you are looking for collaborator(s) or are already pursuing a collaboration and would like to present your project at the next Brainfood Breaks events, please sign up here!

To  recognize the essential role of postdocs at the institute and their extraordinary accomplishments, ISTA is launching the inaugural ISTA Postdoc Prize.

The ISTA postdoc prize aims to reward a recent scientific breakthrough led by a postdoc during their time at ISTA.

The award will be celebrated during a special Institute colloquium (in spring ’25 or fall ’25), when the awardee will showcase their winning project.

The award recipient will receive a monetary prize of 3,500 euros (pre-tax). The deadline for nomination is May 9th 2025

For more information please visit our Intranet space

On November 21st, 2024 the Postdoctoral Office hosted a fun afternoon to celebrate the IST-BRIDGE postdoctoral fellowship. This MSCA co-fund program envisioned 5 calls starting in 2021 from which around 60 postdoc fellows would be selected to carry out cutting edge research over the course of two years.

Postdocs had the opportunity to hear some fun facts about the program, have a strikingly honest account of the adventures in the entrepreneurship world from a Postdoc Alumnus, interact in a job search networking blitz activity, be enthralled by PechaKucha rapid-fire presentations from current fellows, drink, mingle, disagree, laugh and eat.

Big thank you to all the postdocs and speakers who participated in the event!