NCCR SPIN’s first PhD Students Retreat

The Young Researchers Forum - Qubits Ideas (QUID), the community of Young Researchers at the NCCR SPIN, organised its first PhD Students Retreat, from 24th April to 26th April 2023 in Engelberg. The PhD and Master’s students were hosted for three days at Ski Lodge in the beautiful – though quite rainy – scenery of the mountains in Central Switzerland.

The event was centered around students’ talks and poster sessions organized by the QUID scientific committee. This format fostered exchanges between students of the different institutions of NCCR SPIN and enabled networking.

As part of the program, the young researchers attended a scientific communication workshop led by Dr. Daniel Angerhauser from the scientific communication team The Explainables. The workshop was focused on storytelling and scientific message distilling. It started with a warm-up session on Monday evening, where participants were invited to break the ice through fun games to know each other better. The main part of the workshop on Tuesday was articulated around basic principles of storytelling for scientific results. Additionally, practical fictive situations were provided to the young researchers, allowing them to practice explaining their research to different audiences in various ways.

On Tuesday afternoon, the QUID committee also organized a tour of Engelberg followed by a tasty dinner in the Italian restaurant “El Monastero”. At the conclusion of the three-day PhD Retreat, the QUID community held an assembly led by the Young Researchers Area Head Maria Longobardi during which they discussed community needs, and explored their expectations for future activities within the NCCR SPIN network.

We want to thank all the participants and the QUID organizing committees for their active engagement, making the PhD Retreat a very lively and exciting event!