EUCACIS PhD School in Istanbul
On 14 and 15 February 2020 the EUCACIS fellows and team came together for the 4th and last EUCACIS PhD School in Istanbul. As their doctorates reach their final stages, the school served the purpose of sharing useful tips and information that could aid them to embark on their career path or disseminate their research after completion.
On the first day, our guest speaker Neil Urquhart trained the fellows on presenting and sharing academic research. The fellows learned techniques for an effective presentation, for engaging and inspiring audiences whether by well-structured content, employing visual stimulus, by voice control or confident body gestures. The training was motivating for the fellows with regard to their teaching activities at university, but also gave them input for the upcoming doctoral defences and for oral presentations of any kind.
On the second PhD School day, Professor Thomas Christiansen from LUISS shared his suggestions with the fellows on academic publishing, including how to turn the dissertation into a book, how to approach journals or publishing houses, and gave insights of the publication process. Together with EUCACIS programme director Professor Mathias Jopp, he also coached on individual and collective grant proposal writing for academics, motivating the junior researchers to apply for visiting fellowships, post-doctoral projects or international research consortia.
Our fellows also discussed the final stages of their research with their mentors from CIFE and IEP, aiming at overcoming all remaining obstacles in order to submit the final drafts of the theses within the next weeks and months. Finally, fellows and team took the opportunity to discover Istanbul, a metropole at the crossroads of Europe and Asia which is symbolic for the programme that aimed at fostering academic exchange between continents. The 4th PhD School was the last gathering of the EUCACIS PhD Support Programme that will conclude in August 2020.
