In October 2023, we held our first industrial workshop, organised by our colleagues from AstraZeneca, and held on the Gothenburg research site, in Sweden. This was a great opportunity for our ESRs to discover a new perspective and understand the industries perspective on very key topics: sustainability and ethics.
The workshop started with a guided tour of the company, to present the company and its history, completed by a visit of one of the chemistry laboratories.
In the afternoon, the workshop was officially kicked-off by the Executive Director and Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Research and Early Development, Cardiovascular, Renal and Metabolism, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, Dr Malin Lemurell. A selection of great speakers shared their experience this afternoon and the next morning: Steve Swallow and Stewart Owen from the AstraZeneca Macclesfield site (in the UK), Daniel Öhman and Stefan Schiesser from the Gothenburg site. Finally, the session was closed with a presentation by Hanna Holmquist, from the Swedish Environmental Research Institute.
To make the most of their time within AstraZeneca, the organisers also planned another day of workshop, focused around HR, CV and interviews. Our very own Magnus Johansson presented, along with, Ulrica Marklund, talent acquisition at AZ. Finally, the ESRs were separated into groups of 3, to conduct mock technical interviews.
And of course, we did not forget to have fun! Our group went for an initiation to… curling! And clearly some of us were more experienced than others…
