Dear Colleagues,
With the curiosity of a young university and 659 years of experience as a medical faculty, the Medical University of Vienna celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2024.
Curiosity is also a driving force for young scientists, like you, on your career path. To assist you in this endeavour, MedUni Vienna is organizing the YSA PhD Symposium. This special event offers outstanding opportunities for scientific discussions and acquiring essential skills for your career.
We are excited to have you join us at the YSA PhD Symposium!
Markus Müller
Rector of the Medical University of Vienna
Dear Colleagues,
It is my personal pleasure and a great honor to welcome all of you to this year’s PhD Symposium of the Young Scientist Association (YSA) at the Medical University of Vienna. This event has become an old tradition at a comparably young university. With the year of 2024 providing the opportunity to celebrate the 20th birthday of our university, we are grateful and proud to be able to host number 19 within this series of symposia, and we regret that some tiny virus spreading around the world four years ago prevented us from reaching number 20.
From the very beginning, Medical University of Vienna has been dedicated to offering doctoral studies in full compliance with the Bologna Process, which ensures the standards and quality of higher education in Europe. To this end, we have established 29 multidisciplinary thematic doctoral programs in which nowadays approximately 1,500 graduate students are working on their thesis projects. In parallel, annual PhD Symposia organized by the YSA have developed continuously and all the breadth and quality of doctoral research are on display now. I would like to thank all of the authors for their participation in and contribution to this year’s YSA PhD Symposium.
A major aim of the PhD Symposium is to provide an institutional platform for annual progress reports that have to be delivered by each doctoral student. The progress of the thesis project is to be presented to the thesis committees which accompany each doctoral fellow. Within the framework of the PhD Symposium, our doctoral students can reach a much wider audience than just the members of their own thesis committees and can expect to receive feedback on their research not only from veteran scientists, but also from a large number of fellow students. This should help our doctoral candidates to increase the impact of their thesis projects even further. Moreover, the PhD Symposium offers an opportunity to meet doctoral students from other thematic programs, learn about their work, and discuss various aspects of a doctoral student’s daily life with people having more distant scientific backgrounds.
I would like to thank the YSA board for organizing this symposium and all sponsoring companies for their financial support. We are very grateful to all invited speakers for sharing their exceptional expertise with us. Special thanks go to Rector Müller and his team for their continuous support of the doctoral school. Finally, I wish all of you two days of success, enlightenment, and joy at our PhD Symposium!
Stefan Boehm,
Director of the Doctoral School of the Medical University of Vienna
Dear participants,
Welcome to the 19th YSA PhD Symposium at the Medical University of Vienna.
The symposium will showcase the diverse and broad research landscape of our university, including the latest results and achievements of our PhD students, who are an important pillar of our university. You are trained to be experts in your field, to master various research methods and to communicate your knowledge. In order to recruit and retain the best minds and to make the best use of existing intellectual and creative potential, MedUni Vienna places great emphasis on the recruitment process, the educational programme and personal development. Researchers, and in particular early stage researchers, are encouraged and invited to improve their skills - including transferable skills - and to acquire new ones on an ongoing basis. The PhD Symposium, which is a flagship event of the Young Scientist Association of MedUni Vienna, provides our early career researchers with a learning opportunity in many aspects: organizing, listening, presenting, critical thinking and networking. I would like to ask all participants to make this symposium a learning opportunity for you and your colleagues.
I would like to thank the members of the YSA Board and the Organizing Committee for putting together this exciting programme and for their time and energy in making this a great academic and social event. A warm welcome and special thanks to all the speakers who will share their ideas and insights, and to all the participants who will take the opportunity to learn, develop and network.
I wish you all a fruitful and inspiring meeting and all the best for your academic journey.
Michaela Fritz
Vice Rector for Research and Innovation
Dear PhD Students,
The annual YSA Symposium has become one of our most successful traditional conferences for all our doctoral students and for the faculty. The excellent scientific program, the distinguished and inspiring guest speakers you invited, make it a highlight of the academic year. This means a scientific social network at its best. The number of young researchers in our doctoral Programs is promising, promising for a future of scientific development and evolution, young researchers being deeply engaged to improve population health and welfare.
The Medical University Vienna counts 1500 Doctoral students, 53 % in the PhD Programs, 40% all of our doctoral students come from abroad. Researchers have to be global players in the best sense. Our efforts in innovating our Doctorate Programs has led to the implementation of a in the meanwhile very successful PhD Recruitment Process, the Physicians Researcher Pathway Scholarships we provide every year for selected doctoral students working as fulltime physicians, the MDPhD Program for medical students since 2009 and the upcoming ambitious new MDPhD Study Program, we look forward with excitement.
In 2018 Lucy Taylor, a PhD graduate from Oxford published a Career Column in Nature "20 things I wish I had known when I started my PhD"
Three of these things I want to share:
"The nature of research means that things will not go always according to plan"
"Never struggle alone, talk to other students and have frank discussions with your supervisor" and
„Enjoy your PhD! It can be tough, and there will be days when you wish you had a 'normal' job, but PhDs are full of wonderful experiences and give you the opportunity to work on something that fascinates you. Celebrate your successes and enjoy yourself" (Taylor, Lucy. (2018). Twenty things I wish I'd known when I started my PhD. Nature. 10.1038/d41586-018-07332-x.)
We wish a successful YSA Symposium 2024!
Anita Rieder
Vice Rector for Education at the Medical University of Vienna