Sponsoring I&I PhD retreat 2025

We’d like to welcome all of you to this year’s I&I PhD Retreat! We’re very happy so many of you decided to join these two days of fun, research, and more importantly fun. The theme of the retreat this year is: The PhD fairy tales: The story that never ends ୭˚⋆✴︎˚｡⋆. As the days get longer and the weather gets colder, we thought a fairy theme would pair well with the time of the year and get you into the holiday spirit. Now let’s hope that the weather won’t be too harsh on us during the retreat.

This retreat wouldn’t have been possible without your help. Because this retreat is organised by PhD students & for PhD students, we’re very happy with the amount of abstracts that we received. We are confident that we were able to create a program with presenters from different stages of their PhD, and from lots of different research groups, departments and institutes.

On Thursday, we will have a short break from the scientific sessions thanks to our keynote speaker Taylor Krohn. While Taylor also teaches academic writing at the UU, she is an excellent public speaker and she was very enthusiastic when we approached her about talking in front of a large group of young investigators. In her talk, she will focus on an aspect of research that many of us might not think about a lot when doing research or writing articles: “Fear in science”.

Maybe the most important part of the retreat is connecting with fellow PhD students and having a lot of fun. We have created a bunch of activities that allow you to connect with each other, such as the pubquiz or the magical party on Thursday. On Friday morning, you will be able to choose your own adventure during the mystery morning activity (it’s on the program page so not that mysterious).

Of course, the best dressed at the party will receive a magical prize. So we hope to see all of you in amazing costumes! We hope it will be a fun two days and we’re looking forward to seeing what your research is all about.