The Council of Young Researchers of the SAS organised the second edition of the Young Reseachers’ Workshop for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. The workshop was held on 25-27 November 2024 at the SAS Academia Congress Centre in Stara Lesna. This time it was focused on project management issues in close cooperation with the Centre for Scientific and Technical Information of the Slovak Republic, from which the lecturers of the event came.
The aim of the workshop was to familiarize young scientists with the possibilities of project funding and the ways to apply for it, how to submit an application and eventually coordinate the project administratively. The workshop was attended by a large number of young scientists, more than half of whom were international students. The event was therefore also held in English.
The meeting was opened by a presentation of the activities of the Young Researchers of the SAS and the possibilities to participate in its activities, led by the president of the organization Filip Květoň and its vice-president Viliam Nádaskay, followed by a presentation of the activities of the Department of Science and Research of the SAS. The next part of the programme was taken care of by Anna Krivjanská and Marta Kollárová, who presented the services of CVTI SR in applying for support from the Horizon Europe grant scheme and its specific features. After a short break, Dagmar Augustinská presented the possibilities of support from the Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions scheme and various other possibilities of support from grants and fellowships provided by the European Research Council. The first day ended with a lecture by Matej Smrek on the basics of project management.
The second day of the workshop focused more closely on the Horizon Europe scheme. Anna Krivjanská and Marta Kollárová spoke in the theoretical part of the lecture about applying for project support as well as about the rules of funding and project management. Afterwards, the young scientists had a practical experience to prepare a competitive project application with emphasis on the project structure and timeline. In the second half of the day, the workshop participants went for a short hiking trip to the Tatra mountain Hrebienok.
On the third and final day, the practical parts of the workshop continued, where the young scientists tried their hand at developing a realistic project budget and planning project expenses. Then, under the guidance of Anna Krivjanska and Matej Smrek, the young scientists learned more about communication and dissemination of project results and their practical application. They then tried out these strategies in a practical exercise.
The organizing committee of the event consisted of Barbora Buzássyová (Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), Diana Knoblochová (Institute of Zoology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), Filip Květoň (Institute of Chemistry of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), Matej Medla (Institute of Zoology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences), Viliam Nádaskay (Institute of Slovak Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences).
