Review: The First Summer School & A Report on The First Year Of The RTG
02.11.2022How time flies! A year ago, the first doctoral students started their PhD within the RTG 2660. Since then, a lot has happened in the Research Training Group. Meanwhile, 47 members belong to the RTG: 12 funded doctoral researchers and 13 associated doctoral researchers, 11 PIs and 8 associated PIs as well as 3 postdocs.
Our newest members are David Reindel (PI: Prof. Andrea Reiter) and Jessica Reinhart (PI: Dr. Julia Reinhard), who just started their PhDs in October.
Welcome to the group, David and Jessica!
A month ago, at the end of September, the first RTG Summer School took place in Marktbreit, a small town near Würzburg. Under the topic "Approach and Avoidance Methods" with a focus on obstacles in translational research as well as Open Science, the members met for 3 days. There was plenty of opportunity to review the last months and to learn a lot of new things.
Three guest speakers were invited to the summer school, who explored methods of approach-avoidance from different perspectives.
The first talk was given by Robin Aupperle (Laureate Institute in Tulsa, Oklahoma), who spoke on "Exploring the Relevance of Approach-Avoidance Conflict in Human Clinical Research."
This was followed by a talk on "Issues in Translational Threat Research" by Jan Haaker (UKE, Hamburg).
A third talk was given by David Slattery (KGU, Frankfurt) entitled "Translational Approaches to Study Psychiatric Disorders: Challenges and Promises."
Overall, the talks provided a good overview of translational research, which includes both human and animal research. Many thanks to the guest speakers for this exciting input!
The doctoral students then organized and moderated a very interactive panel discussion:
"Big" questions that came up during the day were collected and discussed in small groups in a World Café format. This was followed by a panel discussion with the guest speakers, including advice on how to get a PhD.
On the last day, there was an Open Science Workshop by Jo Havemann.
During the workshop we discussed where we already use Open Science in our research and what tools we can use to improve our research practices.
In addition, PhD awards were presented during the Summer School to Morgane Paternoster, Zora Schickardt, and Sabrina Gado. The awards can be used for any research related expenses.
Teaching awards were also given to Matthias Gamer (best lecture), Philip Tovote (best seminar), Claudia Sommer (best advice), and Esther Asan (best workshop). Congratulations!
Luckily, the next Summer School is already being planned and will take place in October 2023.
Also, in the new semester we will again meet regularly during the Jour Fixe and Dinner Meetings.
It's going to be an exciting semester that we're really looking forward to!
