Together with selected leading scientists, the conference will unite 350 early career researchers from across a range of disciplines for a variety of open discussion and workshops. In this interdisciplinary atmosphere we want to talk about the role of basic research in society and how it can translate into commercial interest, following Max Planck’s famous statement: “Insight must precede application”. But we also want to question whether research should always be oriented towards commercial applications, as the linearity of our theme may suggest.
Accordingly, the first day of the conference will be focused on exploring basic research. The second day will be about questions regarding translation of scientific knowledge into application, considering commercial, societal and environmental interests. The last day will be mainly focused on how scientists themselves can be applied to different career paths, in the course of a big career fair open not only to doctoral researchers attending the whole conference.
Key elements of the conference will be:
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Keynote talks by role models from the respective societies and excellent scientist, which have realized outstanding achievements or engagement beyond pure research.
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Workshops for smaller groups held by other early career researchers, alumni of our organizations or representatives of companies. Workshops will include research based topics which focus on interdisciplinary collaboration, teaching of relevant skills and highlighting of different career paths, the formulation of goals and strategies for our three member organizations to improve doctoral researcher education with regards to more diverse career paths which transcend disciplines as well as the border between academia and industry.
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Poster sessions for the attendees to present their own research as well as to connect with attendees from other fields and organizations.
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Panel discussions entitled: The Future of Research (alongside others with the president of the three research organizations) and Start up: From Science to Your Own Company.
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Informal activities in the evenings such as a science slam, a pub quiz or a get-together with companies to continue the discussion and encourage networking.
Since we will address a very diverse set of early career researchers, we offer both disciplinary formats, that focus on research and connect attendees with the similar backgrounds across organizations as well as interdisciplinary formats grouped around an overarching topic and connecting attendees across scientific disciplines.