Training Course for Core Facility Staff
Core facility staff often find themselves in a role that demands a broad set of skills they traditionally haven’t been taught in their academic career. Balancing different roles, handling multiple projects at the same time, having a service and team-oriented mind, dealing with users are some of the challenges staff typically face.
This course will be led by the world-renowned training team at hfp consulting and will help bridge the gap between academic career and infrastructure scientist.
This course is generously supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and is free-of-charge to staff employed at infrastructures and facilities providing experimental support services to structural biology scientists at NordStruct partner institutions. There are places for 16 participants. Participants will benefit from travel and accommodation support. Similar courses will be repeated every second year in a different Nordic country.
The first NordStruct Training Course for Core Facility Staff will be held from October 26th – 28th at the University of Bergen in Norway. It will be a full three-day course and will include social activities.
The highly interactive and applied training is focused on day-to-day challenges core facility staff encounter, thus going beyond the teaching of abstract concepts. Within the frame of the training participants will work interactively towards applicable solutions of their real-life cases.
In this workshop participants will:
- Learn to balance different professional roles
- Acquire project management and leadership skills to master challenging professional situations
- Improve their communication skills to maintain productive relationships with users and colleagues in a team-environment
- Be equipped with tools to handle multiple projects at the same time
- Strengthen their network within their community and foster cross-facilities collaboration
The application process is quick and simple; applicants must fill in a simple online form and submit it along with a motivational letter, a short CV and support letter.
Applications must be submitted online using this link.
You will be asked to submit:
- a motivational letter outlining what benefit you hope to gain from participating in the course (max. one page)
- a one-page CV outlining your development within infrastructure and facility management
- A letter of support from your line manager (max. 300 characters)
The registration deadline is September 15th and successful applicants will be notified by September 25th and must confirm participation before October 1st.
Registration is open to all staff working at research infrastructures for structural biology at the 28 NordStruct partner institutions.
Applications are encouraged from all day-to-day research infrastructure staff including facility managers, instrument technicians, instrument scientists and support staff. PhD students and postdocs are not eligible to apply.
Applications are open to staff working at all experimental infrastructures relevant to structural biology including x-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, small angle-scattering, neutron diffraction, mass spectrometry, fluorescence, imaging, atom force microscopy, biophysics as well as computational infrastructures.
Click here to see the full list of NordStruct partner institutions.
Thanks to the generous support of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the course is free-of-charge to participants. In addition, accommodation will be provided for all participants from Sunday 25th October to Thursday 29th October.
Furthermore, each participant will receive a maximum of 2.000 DKK to help cover the cost of transportation to Bergen. This can be reimbursed after their participation in the course.
Successful applicants will be notified by September 25th and all participants will be required to confirm their participation before October 1st. Any participant who cancels their participation after October 1st without a legitimate reason will be charged a 3.000 DKK no-show fee.
How to apply?
Registration for this event is now closed. For late registrations, please email Lucy Holt: lucy.holt@bio.ku.dk
Practical Details:
When: October 26th – 28th, 2026
Places: 16 spots
Host: University of Bergen, Norway
Registration:
Registration for this event is now closed. For late registrations, please email Lucy Holt: lucy.holt@bio.ku.dk
Structural biology at University of Bergen
The University of Bergen has an active structural biology community, which is mainly centred at the Department of Biomedicine and its Structural Biology and Drug Discovery research unit.
Projects range from very fundamental structural biology to more translational topics, and UiB groups work on both soluble and membrane proteins, cytoskeletal complexes, and nucleic acids. UiB hosts strong expertise in X-ray crystallography, cryo-EM, small-angle X-ray scattering, NMR, and biomolecular simulations.
Local facilities are crucial for structural biology in Bergen, with a key role played by the BiSS core facility, which offers instrumentation and expertise in biophysical characterisation of macromolecules and complexes, high-throughput screening, and structural biology. The latter includes facilities for macromolecular crystallisation and cryo-EM sample preparation. In addition to BiSS, local core facilities for relevant methods, such as NMR, biocomputing, imaging, and proteomics, increase the local possibilites towards integrative studies. All these facilities are nodes in national and/or international infrastructure networks. Frequent access to state-of-the-art European research facilities, including MAX IV, DESY, ESRF, and cryo-EM instrumentation, is a prerequisite for UiB structural biology, as Norway has no synchrotron, neutron, or cryo-EM facilities of its own.
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