News
Jean Stéphenne, keynote speaker at Skills³ HR seminar
For GSK Biologicals, one of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers, the challenge of attracting, creating and retaining their human capital is immense. In Belgium alone, they work with 7000 people covering more than 40 nationalities. Jean Stéphenne - Chairman and President of GSK Biologicals will share his experiences and reveal some secrets behind the success.
To get insight in each other’s culture, Karl Dittrich, the Dutch founding chairman, hired a professional theatre company to play typical sketches in which differences were highlighted. Harry Martens easily sums up a number of anecdotes where miscommunication led to conflict. He stresses the importance of continuing to ask questions until issues are cleared out and people come to real understanding.
A Vividlinks.eu Story
Harry Martens, Founding Rector transnational University Limburg
An effective cross-border labour market takes years of hard work. A culture must be developed where people dare to turn their faces away from the well-known national centres to the foreign regions just across the borders of their backyard. The transnational University Limburg (tUL), a collaboration between the Universities of Hasselt (B) and Maastricht (NL) set a nice example.
European Centre of Excellence, lab of cross-border collaboration
One of the main reasonings behind the founding of both the University of Maastricht and the Hasselt University is their capital role in the regions’ economic development. Both universities were ambitious to be successful and decided to cooperate. Pointing out efficiency as one of the main advantages of a collaboration, they knew how to convince their governments. In 2001 the tUL was officially launched. Together, the universities developed two courses: IT&knowledge technology and Biomedical Sciences. Only recently, Law study was added, in which the University of Leuven is also participating.
Positive dynamics
Yearly about 80 students graduate in Biomedical sciences at the tUL, the largest number in the Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxemburg). By providing this human capital and by making knowledge accessible, the collaboration offers companies good reasons for establishing their business in the region.
Harry Martens welcomes initiatives like Vividlinks.eu, whose aim it is to strengthen the mobility of knowledge workers across borders. And he is rightly proud of the universities pioneering role in it.
Job in the picture
Manufacturing Engineer (m/f) at Abiomed Europe GmbH (Germany)
In 2001, we began one of the most ambitious undertakings in medical history when we started human clinical trials of our battery-powered AbioCor Implantable Replacement Heart. And this is just the beginning, as our teams continue to work on delivering many other breakthrough advancements.
We at ABIOMED believe there are no more ambitious, challenging and important medical device programs being worked on today.
You can do a job anywhere. You can be part of a legacy at ABIOMED.
For more information about the postiion of Manufactuiring Engineer click here.
Facts and Figures
The vacancy Research Manager Health, Safety & Security from Centexbel, Belgium, was the best viewed vacancy last month. Second best viewed was the function Pharmacovigilance Officer from Basic Pharma Group, The Netherlands.
Over 200 companies have registered, 77% of those can be described as profit companies.
Almost 30% have more than 50 employees, at least 15 companies are employing 1000+ persons. The small and medium sized companies are the best represented on Vividlinks.eu.
438 people have already registered. Many of them are living within the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. However, it is not only a Euregional population, they come from all over Europe: from Amsterdam to Brussels, from London to Munich and even from all around the world. An international crowd with one thing in common: passion for Life Sciences and interest in networking and career perspectives in the Euregio.
Events Calendar
Vividlinks.eu keeps you up to date about the main Life Sciences events in the Euregio Meuse-Rhine. Find upcoming events of next season. The Vividlinks.eu team will be present at all these events.
HR Seminar on "Talent Creation and Retention"
30.09.2010 | Interface Entreprises-Université de Liège, Belgium
Needless to say that talented people are essential in the current knowledge industry. A real challenge for many companies to find, to develop and to keep their human capital. Skills³ invited Jean Stéphenne, Chairman & President of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, President of Biowin, and Jan Van der Vurst, founder of Kenaz and specialist in leadership development, to share their vision. www.skills3.eu
ScieCon NRW 2010
27.10.2010 | Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Career fair of the Biotechnology Student Initiative (btS), which is aimed specifically at students, postgraduates and graduates from the field of Life Sciences. www.sciecon.info/
Master Class
24.11.2010 | Interface Entreprises-Université de Liège, Belgium
Challenging International Workshop for students in Life Sciences. Skills³ seeks motivated senior students and graduates who want to meet top innovative companies and enforce their curriculum and presentation skills. More info and registration: www.skills3.eu
Found @ Vividlinks.eu
Renaud Schoemans is a PhD. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Liège. He just graduated in June 2010. In parallel, he has been studying a Master in Management at HEC-ULg that he will have finished in November. He is now actively looking for a job. We asked him about his first experiences with Vividlinks.eu.
How do you know Vividlinks.eu?
"I knew Stéphane Califice, one of the partners of Vividlinks.eu, from our studies at the University of Liège. He told me about Vividlinks.eu and the Skills³ project from the very beginning. In November 2009 I attended the first Skills³ Master Class in Aachen, together with about 20 job seekers. The presentation skills and the ‘research to business’ workshops were very interesting. As I am clearly business-oriented, I was very pleased to hear the testimony of Mr. Ingo Heschel, one of the founders of Matricel. There is an evident gap between the academic education and the business reality, I am aware that students have to prepare themselves to be in harmony in this competitive business world. I also attended the Master Class Special Edition at the Biomedica Summit in Aachen last March. It was a nice opportunity to meet recruiters “face to face."
What can Vividlinks.eu offer you?
I was immediately interested in this Euregional approach coupled with the Life Sciences sector. In Belgium, people are always looking for jobs in Brussels first, and Vividlinks.eu is a great bridge to find other job opportunities just at the other side of the borders. They are as interesting, but less far away from home and with less traffic jams. Working in another country or region is a rich experience: you learn a lot from cultural differences and you improve your knowledge of foreign languages at the same time. The general job boards do not usually offer this opening towards the neighbouring countries. And general job boards are just general... With Vividlinks.eu it is much easier to find jobs that fit your profile and interests. You don’t have to sort a lot and you have a better view of the opportunities in this sector. You have more visibility on this portal and it is what counts if you want to be found by recruiters."
How do you use Vividlinks.eu?
"I mostly look at the job offers that fit with my profile and criteria. Since I am now available for the labour market, I search jobs on a weekly basis and apply to the new ones. For this search, the job agent functionality that I discovered recently is a perfect tool. I also use the company catalogue and the HR contacts that are listed there for each company to send unsolicited applications. For many companies, these valuable details are not displayed on their general website. In the future I will also use Vividlinks.eu to develop my network in the Life Sciences sector but it is not my priority for the moment."