Training and Mentoring

All RESPONSE DP fellows follow the PSC PhD Program Science and Policy that is unique in its kind. Through the curriculum of this program, PhD fellows will be trained in the communication of scientific evidence to policy-makers and the public; the involvement of different stakeholder groups as well as in policy development and endorsement in Europe and at global scale.

Responsible Research, Innovation and Transformation in Food, Plant and Energy Sciences 

September 13–17, 2021, Wislikofen, Switzerland

Publication: Responsible Research, Innovation and Transformation in Food, Plant and Energy Sciences - Learning Journey and Reflection. Melanie Paschke (ed.). Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center, 2021.

http://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000523545

More information here

Three Integrative Workshops were part of the three RESPONSE Annual Meetings and corresponding training sessions. These workshops were offered to RESPONSE fellows exclusively. Attending the workshop was a mandatory part of the RESPONSE training.

• Integration Workshop 1 - How can scientific evidence and deliberation with society contribute to designing resilient food systems? – Ongoing insights from projects, research processes and results (Mar 2021, hosted by Dr. Martijn Sonnevelt, Executive Director, World Food System Center, ETH).
• Integration Workshop 2-  How can scientific evidence and deliberation with society contribute to designing sustainable transitions in energy systems? – Ongoing insights from projects, research processes and results. (Mar 2023, hosted by Dr. Christian Schaffner, Executive Director, Energy Science Center, ETH).
• Integration Workshop 3 - How can scientific evidence and deliberation with society contribute to resilient land use that supports ecosystem services and needs for food and energy? – Ongoing insights from projects, research processes and results. (Mar 2023, hosted by Dr. Melanie Paschke, Co-Executive Director, Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center, ETH)

Mentoring Workshop 1 on Problem-Framing (March 11 - 12, 2021, online) and repeated on-site ETH Zurich in 2021 and 2022.

"This workshop aims at assuring and strengthens the ESRs ability to integrate disciplines and related knowledge for joint knowledge production. It aims at supporting the formulations of questions that are of societal relevance within their own research projects." (Lecturer: Prof. Christian Pohl, Td Lab, ETH Zurich)

Mentoring Workshop 2 on Impact Analysis and Generation (March 18, 2021, online) and repeated on-site ETH Zurich in 2022.

This workshop will help ESRs to evaluate the impact of their research projects. They will practice various tools to formulate clearly stated, explicit and measurable description and indicators of project impact at the science-policy or science-innovation interface for their research projects. (Lecturer: Dr. Sibylle Studer (Swiss Academy of Sciences, SCNAT)

Mentoring Workshop 3 on How to Make Yourself and Your Research Visible (March 17, 2023, ETH Zurich).

In this workshop, participants learned how to reach a wider audience with your topics and texts and how to prepare and convey your content in an understandable and attractive way in the digital age. Together they worked on a popular science blog post, learned about graphic tools to support the text in a multimedia and interactive way, learned about the pitfalls and strengths of social media and how to create and manage their own web presence for yourself and your research. Another focus was on visibility: How do I build and manage a community? How can I communicate the importance of my research for politics, economy and society – and actually reach them?

As partnering competence center, the Energy Science Center offered a summer school about:

Energy Technology, Policy and Politics – how to build a net-zero GHG emissions energy system 

August 27 - September 1, 2023, Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland

More information here