In May 2024, ViCom arranged and funded an Early Career Researchers (ECR) Retreat for doctoral researchers and early post-docs within ViCom’s projects, which was self-organized by the ECRs. Seven ViCom-ECRs travelled to the youth hostel in Bad Hersfeld for a weekend to meet for the retreat.
The retreat included a variety of activities designed to address the specific needs of early career researchers with a focus on mental well-being, networking, sharing of know-how and mutual support, as well as outdoor activities. The event was organized in a way to foster genuine interactions, a sense of community and independent collaboration among the ECRs. This goal was achieved by building an open and free atmosphere without enforcing a productive outcome from everyone individually.
The retreat included a “brainstorming hike” which combined exploring the Northern-Hessian scenery with discussions about research. With the ECRs coming from very diverse fields, we discovered much potential for interdisciplinary collaborations and progressed existing collaboration plans. Some of the topics discussed include the preparation of a second retreat focused specifically on writing (planned for February 2025) and writing a collaborative article about the importance of multimodal aspects of communication targeted at a lay audience.
There was also a time slot for presentations. Each attendee presented a dissertation topic in a short presentation format – but not their own. Everyone was assigned a topic of someone from their peer group and their task was to present the presentation that the holder of this topic had prepared beforehand. This not only led to new perspectives and ideas on the individual topics, being explained by a less familiar and less stuck brain, but it also allowed the ECRs to sharpen their improvisation and presentation skills.
The remainder of the time was filled with team-building games (related to (visual) communication) as well as space for sharing thoughts, ideas and concerns regarding the PhD phase and a future academic career. The atmosphere of the retreat allowed everyone to share their experiences in a safe environment, leading to deep and personal discussions about one’s future in academia.
On the last day, a part of the group went to an interactive museum about language and communication, the museum “wortreich”, to learn about and play with communication. The museum even had a small exhibition about multimodal communication, although that one would strongly benefit from taking some ViCom classes 😊
Pictures and report: Šárka Kadavá & Alina Gregori