Day in the Life: Madison Gulbin, Innovation Consultant  

In this blog, Madison Gulbin shares her experiences since joining the Catalyze consultancy department as an Innovation Consultant.

Joining an international team

The global pandemic really inspired me to get a master’s degree abroad as it became clearer than ever how much value there is in international collaboration. Working across the globe, vaccine research was able to be done literally 24 hours a day. I thought it was beautiful to see everyone working together for a common goal.  I was even able to do my master’s thesis as a part of a 10-country consortium investigating the emotional and social effects of COVID-19. Once I graduated, I knew my employer would have to value international collaboration as well.

Catalyze’s understanding of the importance of this is one of the things that drew me most to work here. Part of the role of Innovation Consultant is consortium building & management, in which so many different languages and cultures are involved. As a company, Catalyze too is very welcoming, celebrating other cultures, and sharing Dutch traditions with their international employees.

First deadline period, and experiences of collaboration

I love a fast-paced work environment, which is exactly what the deadline period is. The majority of our work is done for the large European grants, which although different, can have the same or very close deadlines. This means no matter how much you plan, with such large proposals all due at the same time, there will always be last-minute things that come up causing a time-crunch.

While there is a lot of work to be done, the depth of experience and expertise of our consultants ensures that we all make it over the finish line. Regardless of position or team, if one of my colleagues can help with a certain issue within a project— they will. Once again, the value placed on this collaborative mindset at Catalyze improves the quality of all our work.

Building strong and complimentary consortia

In my experience, finding a good quality consortium member is one of the most challenging but rewarding tasks as a consultant. You must find synergistic partnerships in which all will uniquely contribute and gain from the project. Sometimes this synergy is not clear at the beginning, and it can be exciting to work with clients to achieve this.

For example, in the last Eurostar’s round I was searching for a partner that would be able to help with vaccine development, specifically in drug delivery in an injectable mode. I found an interesting partner and during initial discussions it turned out they have a  “micro particle” patch that allowed for extended release.

This was such a perfect fit as it reduced the need for a booster dose, and the company was previously interesting in testing it for a vaccine, but they lacked the scientific expertise to do so.

Growing in my role

While my background is in science and research, this part of the job is very business focused. I have enjoyed learning about the different aspects of this side of research, such as grant agreements, licensing deals and IP protection. This has led to me enrolling in internal training to improve my understanding of this aspect of our consultancy service.

Catalyze offers a range of training under the Learning & Development programme that aims to improve all aspects needed in the consultant role. As an employee you are able to customize your training to become more well rounded in your career.

Careers at Catalyze