On 26th October 2017 took place the 2nd edition of the National PhD Welcome Day gathering more than 100 first-year PhD candidates based in Luxembourg from all disciplines at the Maison du Savoir on the Belval Campus, Esch-sur-Alzette.
The event, organised by the University of Luxembourg together with all Luxembourgish public research stakeholders, aimed to give an insight on doctoral training in Luxembourg and inform about the increasingly important topic of Open Science. Prof Tonie Van Dam, Vice-Rector for Doctoral Education and Training, Gender, and International Relations, gave a presentation on Luxembourg’s research landscape, and Gareth O’Neill, president of the European PhD association EURODOC, held a keynote lecture on “Open Science for early-career researchers”.
The event compassed the National Open Science Conference, a conference open to all researchers, further explaining the principles, benefits and challenges of open access, open research data and open source. Participants could listen to the stimulating talks of Prof Lennart Martens from the University of Ghent, an expert in Open Science, and Prof Conchita d’Ambrosio from the University of Luxembourg, who presented concrete examples of how open data can boost research in social sciences. Both lectures were live-streamed and can be viewed here.
The first-year PhD candidates further had the opportunity to discuss in small groups with doctoral candidates being in their third or fourth year. The senior PhD candidates originating from different countries and working in different research institutions gave advice and shared their experience on how it is to do a PhD in Luxembourg. All conference attendees could meet for networking around a delicious standing dinner afterwards.
The National PhD Welcome Day and the National Open Science Conference were organised under the lead of the University of Luxembourg and OpenAIRE, in partnership with the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), LIH, the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law (MPI), the Luxembourgish young researcher association LuxDoc and EURAXESS Luxembourg, the national service centre assisting for the mobility of researchers.
