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PhD journeys at Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

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How to Put the Pro in Conference

By Emma J Butcher, on 3 January 2019

Written by Birgit Pimpel, PhD student at UCL’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and coffee lover

In August this year, I attended the 13th European Congress on Epileptology. The 5 day congress offered a broad spectrum of topics related to epileptology – from basic to clinical research – and was organised into four main themes: Adult Epileptology, Basic and Translational Science, Childhood Epileptology, and Pharmacotherapy. It took place in Vienna, the capital of Austria.

I would like tell you why I always enjoy conferences and what I liked about this one in particular.

Let me start with a non-academic benefit: conferences offer a great opportunity to get to know new places, sometimes in locations you would not otherwise visit. In the case of the Epileptology congress, rather than discovering a new place, the conference gave me a chance to visit home. Before moving to London to pursue a PhD, I lived in Vienna for about 10 years and I was pleased to return. All the more so at the end of summer when the city is not too hot, it is still sunny, and there is a relaxed atmosphere all around.

One of my favourite things that Viennese people do is have schnitzel with noodles coffee and cake. They can spend hours on it at a time. This pastime is precisely what I enjoyed before the conference started (exhibit A). To my delight, more of my favourite beverage was served during the conference at a tiny mobile café that offered delicious coffee, foam art included (exhibit B). Conferences offer you the chance to try out new traditions and temporarily immerse yourself in the culture of the place.

 

Exhibit A: coffee time

Exhibit B: fancy foam art

But let’s talk business. A great plus of conferences is that one has the opportunity to showcase academic work. Abstract submissions and conference presentations entail deadlines, which always help me focus my ideas and reassess the objectives of my research. Puzzling over how to best present my data and make it understandable to a broad audience aids my own understanding and sometimes leads to further questions and ideas for analysis. Conferences commit you to delivering presentable work and thus can help you keep you on track with your PhD in terms of time.

I was informed prior to the conference that a poster I had submitted was shortlisted for one of the ‘Best Poster Awards’. This provided more motivation to prepare a great poster. Spoiler alert: I did not win the prize. However, knowing that over 800 posters were presented during the conference, I was happy to make it into the shortlist. Furthermore, a number of interested conference participants came to see my poster during the poster session and I had great discussions about mine and others’ projects – a rewarding experience, which helped me see the value in my research. Disseminating findings, whether through a poster presentation or a talk, is also a great opportunity to build networks for future collaboration.

Exhibit C: a poster and its happy creator

Last but not least, I really enjoyed this conference because there were two oral presentation sessions closely related to my PhD. Both sessions were stimulating, with top researchers giving talks. In this way, conferences can be a perfect way to get up-to-date about the most recent advances in your field.

To sum up, attending the conference was a really rewarding experience. Not only did I get to immerse myself in the local culture, but I got a chance to focus my ideas and reassess the academic work I was doing. I got an update about recent advances in a highly specialised field of research and I shared my own preliminary findings with like-minded participants.

Finally, a word of caution. I suggest you do not – as I did – offer to too many colleagues to take along their posters to a conference because you happen to have a cool poster tube. It’s easy to cram posters into a tube – the tricky part is getting them out.

Exhibit D: surgical removal of posters from a poster tube