Review: Academy for young researchers

On June 25th 2021, a digital workshop on the topic “Support for the application process” was organized as part of our Academy for Young Researchers in cooperation with the Center for Health Services Research Cologne (ZVFK). We are pleased about the great interest and a fully booked course with twenty participants.


Dr. Nadine Scholten and Dr. Dr. Julia Strupp

The topic of the event was related to the specific features of health services research.
The speakers, Dr. Nadine Scholten1 und Dr. Dr. Julia Strupp2, gave presentations on various funding opportunities in the field of health services research as well as on the special features that project applications to research funders entail

1Institute of Medical Sociology, Health Services Research, and Rehabilitation Science, University of Cologne
2Center for Palliative Medicine, University Hospital Cologne

Content
A basic introduction was given to the topic of third-party funding. Subsequently, third party funding sources were discussed. The focus was on the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Innovation Fund of the Joint Federal Committee (G-BA), whose respective characteristics were illustrated with examples.

The participants also received an overview of what defines a good application what to consider in financial planning and how work packages can be planned. During the lunch break, participants were able to take advantage of an individual counselling offer. Finally, the participants had the opportunity to put the information they had received into practice and to reflect on it during an exercise and open discussion.


Impressions of the participants
In addition to many helpful tips and tricks, participants emphasized the extensive expert knowledge and the special enrichment through interdisciplinarity. In addition, the shared experiences on the rejection of applications were perceived as instructive. Furthermore, the participants perceived the practical part of the workshop in particular as very enriching.

It was a very entertaining and practically oriented workshop. The open and informal setting made it easy to also contribute your own thoughts and questions. Especially the practical experiences of the lecturers, which go beyond the information in the publicly available guidelines, were exciting and helpful.

Workshop participant


Thanks
We would like to thank all participants as well as the two speakers for this exciting workshop and the interesting exchange within the academy.