The Heidelberg Pain "Summer" School, which funnily took place between 18th and 22nd October 2022, was an amazing experience for us.
The partnership between the HaPpY Programme, the Heidelberg Pain Consortium and EURIDOL allowed us to meet other young neuroscientists and to discover one of the world leading biology research University. We also discovered a city that has kept its medieval charm, hidden between the mountains, while offering a variety of entertaining activities in student driven atmosphere.
This Summer School was centered on chronic pain and its comorbidities but we learned more than that. Indeed, the first three days were dedicated to soft skills development, including scientific projects management, scientific writing and presenting confidently, and were greatly animated by the Schiller & Mertens coaching agency. This provided us with moments of really useful exchanges to reflect about our own project as well as to learn how to create and collaborate with students from other experimental background. The final days consisted of great talks and scientific discussions with leading neuroscientists from all over the world. We had the opportunity to discuss in restricted groups with these researchers which allowed to have enriching and elaborated discussions about science, of course, but also gender equality and career management.
This exciting programme made the event very interactive and personally enriching. We were able to meet fantastic students who became friends and share deeply interesting discussions on pain research. We really hope EURIDOL will continue to organize amazing events like this one, offering their students career guidance ideas, because that is what Heidelberg was for us!
