On the 3rd and 4th September NANOSTEM joint forces with NanoCarb, an ETN project, coordinated by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, to deliver the “NANOSTEM-NANOCARB Joint Training School”.

The 2-day event was very interactive, and a number of group activities were arranged to give the participants hands-on experience on the peer review process, figure and caption editing, and thesis writing.

On the first day, we had prominent invited speakers such as Dr Annika Friberg, the development editor for RSC Advances and Dr Ai Lin Chun, the former editor of Nature Nanotech and now founder and director of Storylab. They extensively covered all the aspects related to scientific publishing and gave helpful tips on how to write a manuscript, prepare better figures and efficient captions.

The second day started with a session on how to write the PhD thesis, led by two members of the NANOSTEM team, Prof. Marie-Pierre Dehouck and Dr Caroline Mysiorek.

Dr Raphael Levy, discussed with the attendees the reproducibility of scientific articles in bionanoscience, and the importance of publishing negative results, although it may be a difficult task. Additionally, a very inspiring talk by Dr Romano Kromer gave exciting insights on business models on big pharma and the challenges in drug discovery and development. The training school finished with a short discussion on career options and suggestions on how to make the right choices towards the chosen career, led by the Project Manager of NANOSTEM, Dr Fosca Mirata.

The ESRs also had the opportunity to network and interact with each other online through the break-out rooms on Zoom.

The NANOSTEM-NANOCARB Joint Training School was a great success! The attendees enjoyed the exercises and group activities throughout the school. Moreover, they had the opportunity to socialise and create a bigger network, through virtual networking using the breakout room on Zoom.