Negotiation Skills to Advance a Successful Career in Academia and Beyond (413)

11 February 2025

Dr Fernanda Salina

Does the increasing workload you share in a joint research project prevent you from moving forward with your own research? Do you need to interview people for your fieldwork who are recalcitrant or uncooperative, but also essential for your results? Would you like to increase your visibility in your department or research field, or need to ensure your correct position in the joint authorship of an article? Do you need to obtain more resources (in time. money. or specific knowledge or information) in order to successfully complete your doctorate?

These are just few examples of a variety of situations/challenges you need to face on daily basis as a doctoral candidate. The successful prevention, management and settlement of conflicting interests during your doctorate require not only strategic thinking but also a good command of basic negotiations skills.

Negotiation can be defined as a process between two or more parties that communicate in order to each obtain a specific (individual or common) result. Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of turning to particular negotiation techniques will empower participants to advance and achieve their professional and personal goals.

Being a good negotiator is essential to manage and promote a professional career in both academic and non-academic realms. Negotiation techniques are transferable skills that are also highly demanded for positions at all levels (junior, middle and top management) in governmental, private, and non-profit organizations, as well as in academia.

Description of the workshop:

This workshop presents essential negotiation techniques to help participants better understand, analyze and resolve the issues that can stand in the way of successfully completing their doctorate.

The course aims to create awareness and to empower participants to prepare and plan for negotiating a broad range of disputes related to their daily lives as a doctoral candidate (from strictly academic issues to administrative, institutional, and interpersonal matters). Negotiation can be defined most simply as "communication with a purpose: to get what you want ... but not at any price..." For this reason, the workshop adopts a "win-win" perspective in order to promote conflict prevention and conflict resolution by satisfying the interests of all those concerned without risking the quality of their relationships in the long-term.

In sum, the workshop offers a practical and theoretical approach to negotiation where participants can learn, experience and practice a set of negotiation techniques to prevent, manage and settle disputes not only as doctoral candidates but also with a view to their future careers (e.g. negotiating a salary or job benefits, among others).

Learning outcomes:

After this course, participants should be able to:

• Recognize the different elements of a negotiation process
• Differentiate positional bargaining from an interest-based approach
• Identify the interests that define a problem
• Classify those interests in relation to the stands of the parties in a dispute
• Formulate different options, create new alternatives and develop new solutions
• Develop a BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement).

University of Geneva

Date: Tuesday 11th February 2025

Schedule: 9:30 am to 5:30 pm

Location: University of Geneva

Trainer:

Dr Fernanda Salina is an international lawyer and consultant based in Geneva. Her main interest is to empower and enhance the potential of individuals and organizations in the prevention, management and settlement of their conflicts and disputes.
She has more than 20 years of professional experience from both private sector and academia.
In addition to five years as an in-house lawyer in the banking sector and oil industry, she has more than 15 years of international experience as a researcher, lecturer and trainer in the fields of International Law, International Negotiation and International Mediation.
Dr Salina is an accredited mediator before the Swiss Chamber of Commercial Mediation. She holds a Ph.D. in International Studies with specialization in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva; an Advanced Masters in International Studies, Peace and Conflict Resolution from the University of Queensland, Australia; a Masters of Laws (LL.M.) in Public International Law from Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands; a Bar Admission in Argentina and a Professional Law degree from Universidad Católica Argentina.

Participants are eligible for reimbursement of incurred travel expenses by train between the city of their university and the location of the workshop (half-fare card, 2nd class).

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