The Career Support Core (CASC) will provide a launching platform for future research leaders that grows and nurtures research lines around the broad theme of daily-life stress and build on the game changers of Stress in Action. The CASC will (1) attract and recruit top-talented researchers, (2) optimise their talent and career development through tailored mentoring, provision of leadership roles within the SiA programme, and an (international) exchange programme, and (3) provide education in e.g. theory, assessment and analytical methods relevant for the SiA programme, thereby boosting the international position of daily-life stress researchers.

The CASC aims to stimulate the careers of the early-career scientists (PhD students and postdoctoral researchers) in order to let them excel and grow into well-trained stress scientists. In 2024, the CASC has provided the following activities:

• New early-career scientists that started in 2024 (n=5) received a personal onboarding by the project manager in order to teach them about the project’s structure, management and (internal) communication.
• An inventory of the standard support and mentoring activities provided by the academic institutes has been created. In addition, a living document with relevant (postdoctoral) courses is shared with all consortium members and constantly updated with new information.
• The CASC organized a very successful and well-evaluated interdisciplinary Education Course on Stress in Daily-Life on the 26th to 28th of November 2024 in Amsterdam. 95% of all earlycareer scientists connected to SiA participated in this course. Teachers included 11 senior researchers from the SiA consortium, and education topics covered included stress theories, causality in stress research, transdisciplinarity and ethics, ambulatory stress assessments, and advanced data analytics. The CASC is currently discussing with the Junior Think Tank where and how to organise a 3-day Education Course in 2025.
• The CASC engages with the SiA postdoctoral researchers on a regular basis to discuss competencies, skills and career planning.
• The CASC stimulates and oversees the SiA exchange programme. Early-career scientists are stimulated to spend time abroad at another academic institute during their career. There is some financial support for this, when needed.