Lessons from a ten-year-long journey: building a student-driven computational biology society across Turkey

F1000Res. 2022 Jan 26:11:ISCB Comm J-98. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.107886.1. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

The Regional Student Group Turkey (RSG-Turkey) is officially associated with the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) Student Council (SC). At the RSG-Turkey, we aim to contribute to the early-career researchers in computational biology and bioinformatics fields by providing opportunities for improving their academic and technical skills in the field. Over the last ten years, we have built a well-known student-driven academic society in Turkey that organizes numerous events every year and continues to grow with over 650 current members. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of RSG-Turkey, in this communication, we share our experiences, five main lessons we learned, and the steps to establish a long-standing academic community: having a clear mission, building a robust structure, effective communication, turning challenges into opportunities, and building collaborations. We believe that our experiences can help students and academics establish long-standing communities in fast-developing areas like bioinformatics.

Keywords: 10 years; iscb; student council; turkey.

Publication types

  • Editorial
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Communication
  • Computational Biology* / education
  • Humans
  • Research Personnel
  • Students*
  • Turkey

Grants and funding

This article was supported by the ISCB Student Council.