dokNE as host for this year’s Vienna Workshop on Sustainable Development for Doctoral Students
dokNE as host for this year’s Vienna Workshop on Sustainable Development for Doctoral Students
Welcome by the main organizers of the workshop (Hermine Mitter & Katharina Schodl)
At the 20th November 2013 the Doctoral School of Sustainable Development (dokNE) welcomed 28 international PhD students from 6 different universities and many different disciplines in the Festsaal at BOKU University. They had come to take part at the dokNE-organized 3rd Vienna Workshop on Sustainable Development for Doctoral Students.
This workshop was previously hosted by the Institute for the Environment and Regional Development of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) in November 2011 and by the Vienna Institute of Social Ecology (SEC) of the Alpen-Adria University Klagenfurt-Wien-Graz in November 2012. Its main idea is providing a platform for young scientists working in the context of sustainable development to present and discuss their research projects in an informal but very productive setting.
In a short introduction round in the beginning the wide variety of topics became very clear. It showed that the issue of sustainability is not bound to specific disciplines but can be found e.g. in Sociology, Ecology, Economics as well as in Technology.
Lightning talks
According to the participants’ disciplines and PhD topics the group then split up. In parallel sessions the projects were presented in lightning talks in the first round.
poster sessions
The participants had only 5 minutes to give an overview on their topic’s background, their research interest, their chosen methodological approaches and preliminary findings.
Thereby it became clear that people attending the workshop addressed several dimensions of sustainability and a very diverse area of topics. In the second part of the workshop several poster sessions fostered discussion and interaction among the participants. In each round the focus lay on another 4-5 projects, thereby each participant had about one hour to discuss her/his project and the most crucial questions in depth with the group.
Through this interactive format discussion and interaction among the participants was facilitated. Moreover the opportunity was given to broaden and deepen the understanding of sustainability in general and in the context of the single research projects in particular.
Towards the end of the workshop the head of dokNE, Andreas Muhar joined the event and gave a short introduction into the doctoral school as part of an integrative platform for sustainability at BOKU. A final feedback round should help next year’s organizers to tailor the workshop even better to the needs of the participants. In this round the participants considered the workshop as having been very productive and a good opportunity to learn about other researchers’ methodologies and ways of addressing complex issues. Especially the good working atmosphere leading to intensive discussions that went on the whole afternoon (even without any coffee breaks) was highlighted.
Based on this positive feedback it was seen as highly valuable keeping the “tradition” of the Vienna Workshop alive.
Link to Book of Abstracts.
group of participants