iSENSE project kick-off
The KickOff event that marked the beginning of iSENSE just took place from the 17th of September to the 18th of September in Brugges, Belgium! It was an exciting opportunity for the already selected DCs to meet together and start discussing the directions that our research would go for the next three years.
Wednesday, 13th of September
The KickOff officially “kicked off” on Wednesday at the grandiose Crown Plaza Hotel, where after the remaining formalities regarding the practical arrangements of the network were taken care of, each DC had the opportunity to present their background and the key points of their respective projects in what was an excellent opportunity to get to know the supervisors and associated partners and gather valuable feedback.
After discussing in depth how the secondments of the program were going to function, a tour of the lovely city of Brugges took place, and afterwards everyone met together for the first project dinner, also at the Crown Plaza Hotel.
Thursday, 14th of September
The first of many soft-skills trainings took place, with a focus on ethics, integrity, open access and open science by KU Leuven Research Coordination Office. Always rooted on the key virtues of honesty and integrity that any researcher must aspire to posses, the workshop also included plenty of practical discussion regarding how these virtues should be applied to every day situations. A key highlight for us undoubtedly was the importance of open science and how to best publish our findings so that others might replicate and use them as a starting point for their own research.