The SGroup PhD Training and Competition initiative progressing at full speed!

On 5 and 6 September 2022, the top candidates of each member university had the opportunity to join the training  "Crafting Your Professional Pitch", facilitated by Ric Oquita from Impulsplus. The training focused on helping them develop a concise and engaging pitch about their thesis for the competition phase. Some of the participants can be seen on the picture below.

The entries submitted are now being evaluated and the results will be announced by 30 September, stay tuned!

Participants in the PhD Contest had the chance to develop the required rhetorical skills to create a 3-minute pitch in an international setting that can be understood by an intelligent audience with no background in their research area. Later, they delivered their pitch by video, using the competences acquired or improved during the training, to be evaluated by a jury formed by:

• Dr Arnim Heinemann, Director of the International Office, University of Bayreuth (Germany) - SGroup President;
• Prof. Cecilia Christersson, Vice Rector for Global Engagement and Challenge Based Learning at Malmö University (Sweden) and Dr. Hans Abelius, Head of the International Centre at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) - SGroup Executive Committee members and coordinators of the Think Tank for Doctoral Education;
• Ms Mar Fernández Sainz, Director of International Relations Office, University of Valladolid (Spain), SGroup Executive Committee member and coordinator of the initiative. 

The top 10 candidates will be announced on SGroup’s website and social media and all candidates who wish to do so can have their pitch videos posted in a playlist on SGroup’s YouTube channel.

The competition will conclude with the Final Ceremony at the SGroup’s Annual Meetings, namely during the Think Tank Academy Conference, on 26 October 2022, in the University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal. The top five finalists will be invited to attend and present their pitch live to the network and receive their prize in person, a Mobility Grant of up to 1000€ to carry out research abroad.