The inaugural Climber Community meeting stated the official kick‐off of the EMAC’s Climber Community (CC) initiative. It took place in form of an independent session at the 40th EMAC conference in Ljubljana and recorded 42 participants from 12 countries. This new platform does not (only) target mountaineering aficionados, but academics at an early stage of their career, which hold a post‐doc position (e.g., assistant professor, research fellow, etc.) in marketing.
The Climber Community aims to establish a post-doc community in Marketing throughout Europe and other continents. Several research organizations and conferences in Europe offer a special program for PhD students and/or networking possibilities for full professors. However, the generation between beginners and successful leaders sometimes seems to be forgotten, although they represent the potential marketing professors of the future. After finishing their PhD, they have taken their career decision, and have chosen the academic pathway.
Some of them have probably started to build up a network with peers during their PhD studies, have developed expertise in their field of research and applied methods, attended international conferences, and have perhaps already published their first journal articles. In other words, they are the "climbers" of the European Marketing Academy.
The CC is open to all post docs (and PhD students in their final phase who want to stay in academia) who are members of the EMAC.
Two groups within the social networks LinkedIn and Facebook were opened. Their aim is to facilitate networking activities and social exchange between climber community members in the meanwhile.
Updates on next steps, new developments, and future CC meetings will also be posted on these two websites.
