This year’s second RIGeL Summer School took place between the walls of the beautiful medieval Benedictine Abbey of Weltenburg. Between the 21^st and 23^rd of September PhD students of the four RIGeL Sections got the opportunity to present their projects in a poster presentation or in a talk, to exchange expertise and methods, to get to know each other better and to establish contacts. In order to make the atmosphere relaxed right at the beginning and in order to improve the generic skills of the participants, three different courses have been offered on the first day of the Summer School on the topics “Good Scientific Practice”, “Conflict Management” and “Presentation skills”.

Since all courses required from PhD students full active participation and total concentration, the participants let the day end quite comfortably with a get-together with drinks and cheerful conversations.

 

The program of the next day included poster and talk sessions as well as a guest lecture at the end of the day with Dr. Frank Vogler from the Miltenyi Biotech company. Frank Vogler presented in a kind of Alumni Talk his career after PhD and gave participants useful hints for the job application.

 

On the third day of the Summer School the last poster and talk sessions took place.

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the Summer School PhD students had the possibility to vote for the best poster and the best talk. Felix Grünberger (AG Grohmann) from the Department of Microbiology has been awarded with the best poster prize. The best talk prize has been awarded to Anna Bludau (AG Neumann) from the Department of Behavioural and Molecular Neurobiology. The winners received a 50 EUR Altstadt Zehner gift card. Also the most diligent five Questioners (Julia Greindl-Junghans, Robert Knüppel, Anna Kuhn, Daniela Sparrer and Tobias Strunz) who asked the most of the scientific questions after the talks, have been awarded with a small prize: 10 EUR each Altstadt Zehner gift card.

 

All in all, it was a very successful three-day Summer School where people from the different RIGeL Sections came together, got a lot of new input and information about different topics and projects. We look forward to the next Summer Schools 2018.