PhD Retreat: Back Again!
 

From May 4th to 6th, students and supervisors of our PhD programme got together for the first in-person PhD retreat since 2019.

We returned to the Sportschule Hennef, a beautifully located venue close to Bonn. Looking back at this unusually long period with few live meetings, we were extraordinarily excited about our three-day event with a conference-like character.

During the retreat, first-year students conceptually outlined their future PhD projects in short talks which were lively discussed with the almost 70 participants. Our third-year students gave longer talks on their projects to gain valuable feedback for the final stages of their PhD. The talk sessions were excellently chaired by second-year students who brought passionately designed posters to the retreat to present their projects. Talks and posters covered an astonishing range of plant science research and provided an excellent overview of what our PhD students are working on.

We further heard updates on the PhD programme from our Managing Director and graduate school speaker, George Coupland, and from our PhD representatives, who now passed on the torch to a new generation of student representatives.

A retreat wouldn’t be a retreat without a social programme. Organised by student volunteers, we played the ‘Hennef Games’ on day one, in which mixed groups of students demonstrated their creativity and team working skills. Almost traditionally, we went for a scenic hike on day two and asked our students and supervisors to compete in a quiz with fun trivia and challenging logic puzzles.

"This get-together was a testimonial to what I enjoy so much about our PhD program: witnessing a strong international community of bright minds unfold."

Stephan Wagner, PhD Coordinator

We had been waiting for this so long and everyone is already looking forward to participating in the next retreat in 2023!