Potsdam, 20.10. - 21.10.2016
The winter workshop 2016 was conducted on 20th – 21st October at Hotel Arcona Am Havelufer, Potsdam, which is the capital and largest city of the federal state of Brandenburg.
Potsdam is a city of UNESCO World Heritage, a city of parks and palaces on the idyllic lakes of the Havel, a grand and historical city of culture, a center of film, education and science, characterized by a 1000-year-old history as a royal capital.
The destination could be reached from Magdeburg by train in nearly one and half hours and the hotel was near from the railway station. The hotel provided adequate facilities for the workshop. We started our journey at 7 O’clock and arrived at the workshop venue a few minutes to 9 O’clock.
The workshop consisted of 22 presentations including 6 poster presentation. Participants were given 15 minutes to present current research results followed by a 5 minute discussion with the audience. An option of additional grace-time was given to presenters with prior notice. This provided presenters opportunity to discuss their results and hurdles with a diverse group of researchers. The cozy coffee and lunch breaks provided opportunity for further discussions.
New members of the graduate school were given opportunity to introduce themselves and their research background. During the poster-presentation session 6 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 with coffee and cakes.
As usually the academic program was accompanied by a social event: a Nachtwächter (Night-watchman) tour. We walked to the Brandenburger Tor where the tour started. The tour guides were dressed in historic ‘Night watchman cloths’ and we had an interesting walk famous and lesser known places along the former walls of old Potsdam with tails of the historic stories of Potsdam. A group dinner on the same evening served this social aspect as well which is of great importance in an interdisciplinary graduate school.
The workshop format was proven successful when nearly everyone were able to stick to their scheduled time, a couple of presentation had to be cut off by the chairmen. The workshop also included a board meeting.
On Friday we departed for our journey to Magdeburg after having lunch at the venue and it was common consent, that the workshop met all expectations academically as well as socially.
Here you will find the program.