Erfurt, 09.06. - 10.06.2016
The summer workshop 2016 took place in Erfurt, which is the capital city of Thuringia and has about 200.000 inhabitants. Erfurt has the oldest university in Germany and Martin Luther is its most famous former student.
The location, ComCenter Brühl was reached by bus from Magdeburg and the workshop could be opened at 10:30 on a Thursday morning. The workshop had 21 contributions in the form of presentations and a poster session.
In 14 presentations each participant was given 15 minutes to present current research results followed by a 5 minute discussion with the audience. Once again this proven format allowed to identify helpful approaches for sticking points as well as to ignite further discussions during coffee breaks and social activities. It took a 15 minutes-walk to get from the hotel, Hotel am Kaisersaal in the center of the old city to the workshop venue and even this time was used by many for fruitful scientific discussions.
A new member of the graduate school was given the opportunity to introduce himself and his field of research in a short presentation. During the poster session seven participants first introduced the content of their poster in a few presentation slides. Afterwards there was time for all participants to study the presented posters and discuss
questions with the presenters in detail.
As usually the academic program was accompanied by a social event: a guided tour through the old city. The group was split up into an English and a German speaking tour to allow each member of the international group to learn about the history and culture of the city.
The workshop finished with a group discussion of the students. In this meeting the focus was set on the question, how the workshop could be further improved. The majority of students wants more time for discussions or presentation of open questions. Therefore several options were discussed how this can be implemented in the next workshop.
On Friday at noon the participants traveled back to Magdeburg by bus and it was common consent, that the workshop met all expectations
academically as well as socially.
Here you can find the program.