Graduate Experience

Bridging education and research

The Graduate Experience is an umbrella term for the activities in Flagship 3 that target PhD students, but also advanced Master’s students and young researchers. In addition to summer schools and workshops, individual opportunities such as research stays are tailored to the learners’ own research interests and projects. Activities under the Graduate Experience give PhD students access to the experts and other young researchers working in their specific field, allowing them to incorporate highly relevant methodologies and new findings directly into their own work, to access infrastructure, and to build strong professional networks of their own. Successful formats include the Flagship Summer School, which has been held since 2020, and the Sorbonne-Heidelberg Workshop on AI in Medicine, supported by the Franco-German University.

“As doctoral candidate in medical physics, I was able to attend the 4EU+ summer school "AI in medicine" at Sorbonne University. I develop a computer vision pipeline at the Institute of Pathology at University Hospital Heidelberg. Interdisciplinary exchange and medical care abroad are of particular interest to me and my applied AI project. Therefore, the insights and discussions at the summer school from 11 to 13. September were very fruitful. We had the opportunity to present our research, discuss it with others and get additional ideas of the medical application of AI from expert talks by professors as well as industrial collaborators.

After inspiring days at Sorbonne University, we were able to discover the marvelous city of Paris and deepen our new friendships. In addition to the medical insights during the workshop, I also made contact with other students and inspiring professors. These might result in bilateral exchange, talk invitations or even collaborations. I am looking forward to a subsequent summer school and encourage 4EU+ students or doctoral candidates to join the interdisciplinary exchange!”
– Christoph, PhD student at Heidelberg University

“I was able to visit the University of Copenhagen for a research stay with a 4EU+ travel grant. We approach climate change solutions from a theoretical chemistry perspective, exploring new molecules for molecular solar thermal storage (MOST) systems. I learned a lot about high throughput screening methods, which in the future will help with faster molecule candidate selection or make AI applications possible. Not only did I learn more about these aspects of theoretical chemistry but I also got to know so many new and exciting people and this amazing city that received me with open arms.”
– Nils, PhD graduate from Heidelberg University

Key facts

Universities: all 4EU+ universities participate in the Graduate Experience

Lead university: various universities, depending on the exact format

Target audience

PhD students
Advanced Master’s students
Young researchers
Professors & research groups

Previous editions:

Individual PhD research stays

Flagship 3 Summer School

Sorbonne-Heidelberg Workshop on AI in Medicine

2024: Optimised Trials with Machine Learning
2025: Machine Learning for multi-modal data