The SIOP Young Investigator (YI) Network represents the interests of young investigators in the field of paediatric oncology. It provides a platform for YIs to develop research and scientific skills, and facilitates an international research network with other young investigators in paediatric oncology. A SIOP YI is:

• Any SIOP member or associate member under the age of 40 years*
• From any clinical or academic background
• No postgraduate qualifications necessary

News from the YI Education Day committee

The SIOP YI Education day, held on Wednesday 23^rd October, was our biggest yet with over 176 registered attendees. The theme for our first sessions was careers and was titled “Failure is Success in Progress”. Our first speaker was SIOP President Professor Kathy Pritchard-Jones who provided an insightful talk entitled: “How I built a successful research career-learning from my failures.” We are extremely grateful that Professor Pritchard Jones took time out of her busy schedule to support YI activities. Professor Pritchard-Jones was followed by our second speaker Dr Adam Esbenshade, who talked about successful academic interviews, and presented the results of a survey of Children’s Oncology Group (COG) and SIOP members, which is currently being written by members of the YI Education Day committee for publication.

After the coffee break, we had a very successful YI, PODC and Nurse joint session on Mentorship. This joint session was followed once again by our extremely popular YI Expert Lunch, which once again had YIs queuing out the door hoping that the space might become available. The theme of our first afternoon session was “Publish less, Publish better.” YIs first heard from Professor Peter Newburger and Dr Thomas Gross, the Editor and Deputy Editor of Pediatric Blood and Cancer who spoke about peer review. They were then followed by Dr Bob Phillips who gave an unforgettable talk on predatory journals and the pressure to publish.

The theme of our final three sessions of the afternoon was Global and Cutting Edge Research. Our first speaker was Professor Claire Wakefield whose talk on ethical aspects of trials and the lessons learned from Precision Medicine really engaged the audience. Dr Catherine Lam then spoke about YIs contributions to the WHO initiative, and finally, Dr Trijn Israels gave an overview of the Wilms Tumour Africa Project. The majority of the YI education day was webcast and is now available on the the SIOP website.

News from the YI Collaborative Event committee:

On Thursday October 24th, over 160 SIOP attendees participated in the YI Collaborate Event sponsored by Texas Children’s Hospital’s Global HOPE Program. The event occurred at L’Embarcadère Lyon from 7:00PM to 10:00PM. This year’s event had the longest waitlist when compared to previous years, with over 200 more individuals expressing interest in attending. Thus, in addition to surpassing the goal of 150 attendees, the YI Collaborative Event successfully provided an informal setting for YIs to network, establish collaborations with peers, and form relationships with investigators, all while enjoying food and drinks that were catered by Declerck Traiteur. Those who attended expressed positive feedback about the event and represented 44 countries, across six continents (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia). One attendee also won the giveaway prize, which was free registration to SIOP 2020.

News from the YI Social Media committee

The SIOP YI social media/blog committee consists this year of five members and spreads over ten different time zones! The committee is co-chaired by Shenila Anwar, pediatric oncology nurse in Karachi and chaired by Dr. Sarah Cohen-Gogo, fellow in pediatric oncology in Toronto, Canada. The committee is responsible for all of SIOP YI communication on social media – we run Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linked In accounts. We also have a dedicated SIOP YI blog (http://siopyi.blogspot.com/ ) and welcome any ideas for new posts! We have been very active on Twitter during the SIOP 2019 Congress and are close to a 1000 followers on this platform. Our aims for this coming year are to strengthen our presence on social media and to keep on bringing meaningful content through the blog.

Please reach out to us – we are happy to be the SIOP Young Investigators’ antennas on the web!

We are always looking for new committee members to join the YI network. To apply to join us please email: young_investigators@siop-online.org

In close collaboration with the SIOP Executive board, SIOP-YINET aims to:

• Integrate the interests of young investigators within the SIOP objectives
• Provide an online platform for networking and collaboration amongst international young investigators
• Reach out to other young investigators to promote active involvement of young investigators in SIOP
• Develop and implement sessions in the SIOP congresses directed to young investigators

The SIOP Young Investigator NETwork (SIOP-YINET) represents the interests of young investigators in the field of paediatric oncology. SIOP-YINET provides a platform for young investigators to develop research and scientific skills, and facilitates an international research network with other young investigators in paediatric oncology.

SIOP YI Terms of reference July 2019

We are often asked “what is a Young Investigator?”. This has now been clarified within our terms of reference and we are happy to confirm that a young investigator is any SIOP member or associate member under the age of 40 years*, from any clinical or academic background, and no postgraduate qualifications are necessary (*if the potential YI is able to demonstrate that they have been away from the field, for example, for a career break, carers or parental leave or long-term sick leave, this will be taken into account when considering the upper age limit).