BSS 2006 - 2009 · Baltic Summer School 2006 to 2009

Final Activity Report Summary - BSS 2006 - 2009 (Baltic Summer School 2006 to 2009)

Dramatic changes in demography will change future disease profiles within European countries. The enormous increase in the relative representation of elderly people will lead to high incidence rates and prevalence for brain diseases, infectious and cardiovascular diseases as well as an increasing cancer incidence. To address the challenges ahead our understanding of the basic biological and genetic mechanisms underlying such diseases needs to be furthered, coupled with a particular effort to promote translational research converting molecular epidemiology into clinical relevance. The medical faculties of the Universities of Copenhagen, Kiel and Lund have established the Baltic summer school to combine their efforts in training young researchers. This initiative was started with the consensus that training of the best young researchers must be done with an interdisciplinary, international approach, both with regard to the students and to the teachers. The format of the school consists of a theoretical course - BSS - and a lab course - BLC. In one and the same year, BSS and BLC focus on the same topic within the field of integrative bio-medicine, but with different approaches. Whereas BSS focuses on the conceptual issues of the topic and the various interconnected subjects in a series of in-depth lectures, discussions, seminars and round-tables, focus of BLC lies in the transfer of new methods and technologies, which are important for competent and high profiled scientific work in the respective field (engaging the best and most appropriate laboratories at the participating universities). The topics of the Baltic summer school have been selected to deal with important disease groups expected to become prevalent with increasing long levity. The faculty of the BSS was composed by internationally leading experts who presented the different fields in high level lectures and seminars. They organised round table discussions giving the possibility for the participants to explore certain topics in real depth. The labs for the laboratory courses were selected from the three medical faculties in Kiel, Copenhagen and Lund and provided high level training in the surrounding of an active scientific group. The topics and the format of Baltic summer school proved to be very attractive to young researchers. The theoretical courses were visited by 324 young researchers (204 early stage researchers, 120 experienced researchers and others), the laboratory courses by 80 young researchers (61 early stage researchers, 19 experienced researchers). Of the 324 participants 248 originated from EU countries or countries associated with EU, 76 participants from third countries. The distribution between male and female participants was unequal, 60 % of the participants were females, 40 % males. It is interesting that in this relation there was no significant difference in the group of EU-participants and third-country participants. The resonance of the participants and of the key-note speakers was very positive. The in depth presentations and discussions were highly estimated. Since the audience was not too big and the organisers aimed to create lot of possibilities for interaction the atmosphere of the School was very relaxed. This gave the possibility for networking and for creating scientific and professional contacts. The feedback from the participants was positive in all aspects.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз