Step 3: Contacting Potential Sabbatical Hosts

You should contact your potential hosts at least a year in advance of your sabbatical. I waited until 8 months and I was very lucky that things were able to work out.

Who to contact?
That depends on your goals for your sabbatical. I had two things that I hoped to accomplish. First, I wanted to work in a lab that studied immune tolerance and cytokines. This is a field that my own research interests had migrated into within the past year or two and I wanted to get some hands-on experience working in this area. Second, I wanted to provide an interesting cultural experience for my family. We love to travel and my son is going to be eleven years old next year -- an ideal age for such an experience.

With those two goals in mind, I started looking for labs to contact. I was in the middle of writing a paper on my research in this field so I simply looked at the reference list for that paper. Like I mentioned above, this was a new field for me so I really didn't know any of the scientists in this field. I looked at the list and several scientists stood out, either because they were doing work very similar to my own research or because they were major players in this field. I next looked to see where each scientist was located and two people caught my attention: one was in Belgium and the other in Germany. Obviously, this was a pretty simple way to find potential hosts, but I thought it was good enough for a start.

How to contact them?
The paper that I was trying to publish offered an excellent opportunity to contact these potential hosts. I waited (anxiously) for the paper to be accepted. Once it was accepted, I e-mailed a copy of the accepted manuscript to the two potential hosts. I explained to them that I had two reasons for contacting them. First, I wanted to share with them my unpublished work because I thought that they might be interested in it. Second, I explained that I was interested in collaborating with them and that I was looking for a place to visit for my sabbatical.

This approach worked out great for me. Not only have I successfully arranged to do a sabbatical with one of the scientists, but I have started correspondence with the other and may collaborate with him in the future.

Next: Arranging a visit!