The focus at Health’s annual PhD Day next January will be innovation and business collaboration in research. Hear why the organisation committee has chosen this particular theme and see who will be guesting the PhD Day as keynote speakers.

2019.11.12 | Simon Byrial Fischel

The chairmanship of the PhD Day’s organisation committee talks about the choice of this year's theme 'Innovate and Initiate - From Academia to Business'.

Under the title ”Innovate and Initiate – from Academia to Business”, Health’s almost 650 PhD students will come together on Friday 24 January 2020 at the PhD Day. The theme is intended to show the faculty’s PhD students that there is fertile soil for creating innovative business opportunities regardless of their educational background or field of research. But also that external funding is a necessary basis for successful health science research today.

"It’s important for the PhD students to get acquainted with different sources of funding. This can be foundations that traditionally support academic projects, but also possible collaboration with the industry, which can also contribute towards making new research findings available to therapists and patients," says professor Ebbe Briggs Bødtkjer, chair of the PhD Day organisation committee.  

Watch the video and see the chairmanship of the organisation committee present the theme of the PhD Day 2020

Business savvy researchers set the tone

This year’s keynote speakers are both equally at home as researchers and entrepreneurs with extensive experience of making the leap from research to business. In addition to being the founder of the Center for Neuroeconomics studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, Professor Paul J. Zak is also the person who identified the neurological mechanism that makes cooperation and trust possible. He was among the first researchers in the world to integrate studies in neurology and economics, leading to ideas that are today utilised in the World Bank and which have led to Zak sitting on the boards of some of the world’s largest companies.

PhD John Haurum is one of Denmark's most successful biotech leaders with an impressive portfolio of board positions in companies such as Synklino, AgomAb Therapeutics, NeoPhore, Synact Pharma and STORM Therapeutics. He originally earned a Doctor of Medical Science at Aarhus University and a PhD at Oxford University, and since then John Haurum has gained solid expertise in the management of innovative R&D processes.

“We hope that the theme and the speakers will appeal to the whole spectrum of PhD students at Heath and help to spread positive stories and thus also the message that business collaboration can be a vehicle for accelerating promising research projects,” explains Ebbe Briggs Bødtkjer.

Posters, flash talks and Fogh-Nielsen

The programme for the day is full of traditional poster presentations, flash talks and presentations by both PhD students and students from the research year and research-oriented honours programme.

In addition, the PhD supervisor of the year will be named and awarded the JCD Award, and the Fogh-Nielsen scholarship will be awarded after a presentation competition, in which three of the faculty's sharpest PhD students will compete for the scholarship – and which of them should get the biggest piece of the cake. The day concludes with a big celebration at the Centralværkstedet for PhD students and supervisors.

See the complete programme for the PhD Day 2020 (pdf)

Read more about the event on the PhD Day website.

Contact

Chair of the organisation committee, Professor Ebbe Briggs Bødtkjer
Department of Biomedicine - Research and Education, the Skou Building
Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 10
Email: eb@biomed.au.dk
Tel.: (+45) 2487 0240