PhD Day 2021 - When Creativity meets Science (Online)

Wednesday 21 April 2021 from 12:15 to 17:00

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This years theme: "When Creativity meets Science"

The PhD council and the Graduate School of Life Sciences joint forces to organize an afternoon with 3 plenary sessions and interactive workshops. This year it will be an online event.

Information about the programme can be found below.

Workshop 1: Creativity in Teams - Cécile Claessen

In this workshop you will learn more about idea killers and ground rules of a creative meeting. We will work with MURAL a great tool for brainstorming and creative meetings. We will use a “real life” question. You will also learn how to develop an energetic flow in a meeting. At the end of this session we will use the COCD box to select good ideas. You will receive a link for MURAL and be able to practice in advance.

Workshop 2: Designing your Thesis Cover: What to Consider? - Vincent van der Vliet

In this 45-minute workshop, you'll be introduced to the important basics of graphic design. With the design of your thesis cover clearly in mind, we'll go over colour theory, typography and the basics of composition: what to put where on the cover. Vincent will give you pointers about what to do, and what to avoid at all costs. Spine width? Invitation? Image licenses? You'll have it covered after this workshop.

Workshop 3: Presenting Science: Know What to Show! - Noor Godijk

Want to send your message and make it stick? Use the right emotion. How? With colours, fonts and strengthened by an image. Subscribe to this workshop to learn how to make catching (scientific) powerpoints and posters, even when you're bound to a house style. For more information about Good Consulting, go to goodconsulting.nl

Workshop 4: Mindmapping - Laurens van der Vuurst

Making a mind map helps to visualize ideas and concepts for yourself and others. By structuring information, you will make it easier to analyze and understand the information and thereby it will help to make associations to expand your idea. You will activate your whole brain as next to words, also colors, shapes and spatial awareness will be used to create the mind map. In this workshop, you will write down a specific question/bottleneck of your own research and use the SCAMPER technique to analyze the question. This will give new insights into the research questions. After this workshop, you have learned a new technique, but also new ideas for your own research.

Workshop 5: Brainstorming: Structuring Creativity - Jip Lauwers

When you brainstorm together you can rely on the creative people in a group, however encouraging creativity in each other is much more effective. This will not happen automatically, especially because academic thinking is most often convergent thinking, where we already stop new ideas before the brainstorming has even started. Divergent thinking is much more open minded, it is associative thinking. In this workshop, we will answer the following question “what are the three best ways to brainstorm?” Thereby, (1) participants will discover that they are not brainstorming at all, but are sharing experiences of previous brainstorm sessions (2), do not clarify how to interpret the question and/or (3) start a discussion. This is a wake-up call. Next, students are taught to recognize divergent and convergent thinking and to encourage divergent thinking.

Workshop 6: Train Your Creative Muscle - Jojanneke van den Bosch

Working on your PhD is a fantastic adventure, but it can also be rather challenging, and from time to time daunting. In the messy middle (usually the second year), things may get a bit tougher than during the blissful first year. Jojanneke looked into some challenges that many PhD candidates have encountered. Whatever the challenge may be, there is always a way. Whether or not your PhD is going peachy, Jojanneke would like to help out with some practical, creative exercises that might also come in handy in your daily life. For Jojanneke, they have helped her publish three books, create a TEDx talk, launch over 25 online courses, and build her life from scratch and without family, after having lost her parents and most of her family at age 14. Resilience is a big theme in her life, and in many people's lives. She learned a crucial lesson: creativity triggers resilience. But there is more to add to this equation, to make your innovation thrive. And that's where the magic happens. Jojanneke will elaborate on this in the workshop.

Workshop 7: Creativity under Pressure - Paula Meesters

In this interactive workshop by our PhD-psychologist Paula Meesters, you will find out how stress and pressure diminish access to the creative brain and how you can cope with this.