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Always wanted to broaden your perspective on science, and talk about your research in an interdisciplinary setting? ENABLE is a great opportunity for PhD candidates and postdocs to showcase your research and also get the chance to participate in different outreach activities, satellite events and a career day. Inris Hagemas, one of the previous attendees, will tell you why this is an event not to be missed!
ENABLE is an interdisciplinary symposium, which aims to involve young scientist in the field of biomedical sciences. It desires to promote excellence in the biomedical sciences by allowing crosstalk between disciplines, collaborations with industry and engagement with society. ENABLE is more than just a scientific conference, core components of the program also consist of a career day, outreach activities and satellite events.
To give you an idea of what to expect during this symposium, we interviewed one of the previous attendees: Iris Hagemans. Iris works at the Radboudumc as a PhD candidates at the department of tumor immunology. In addition to being an attendee, she was also one of the organizers of the Dutch version of ENABLE in 2019.
What are the ENABLE symposia and which activities are there?
ENABLE is a 3-day biomedical science symposium organized by PhDs and postdocs, for PhDs and postdocs. It is intended to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and communication with society. For this reason, ENABLE has three major components: a content-focused, scientific part, a career day to support orientation and progression into different sectors outside of academia and an outreach program to foster interaction between science and the local community. The outreach program consists of visiting schools and nursing homes (by the organizers) but also of pub talks which take place on the first evening of ENABLE in various pubs around the city, to show the community how cool science can be!
Who organized the ENABLE symposia?
ENABLE takes place four times, in Barcelona (2017), Copenhagen (2018), Nijmegen (2019) and Milan (2021, virtual) and is organized by collaborative teams of PhDs and postdocs. The scientific committee organizes the talks, poster presentations and so on, while the local organizing committee takes care of the career day and the outreach activities.
What was for you one of the highlights of the previous edition?
When I first attended in Copenhagen, I thought the career day especially was really interesting, since that is so different from other conferences, which are mainly focused on the scientific part. I thought it was really useful to think about other opportunities than academia. You could follow workshops and have a chat with professionals from outside academia with a similar background. There were also lots of workshops that were useful for people wanting to stay in academia, such as grant writing or how to network.
Because I liked it so much, I decided to join the local organizing committee in 2019 and help organize the career day.
ENABLE is organized by and for researchers in all fields of biomedical sciences, how was this reflected in the symposium itself?
ENABLE is indeed interdisciplinary, and I loved hearing some talks about topics that were completely different from what I work on myself. The talks by other PhDs and postdocs, but also the 8 keynote speakers, are on very different topics but still all in the field of life science. For the career day, you could select the people you were interested in talking to so I felt like even though the program was broad in a sense, it was also very focused in other ways.
Lastly, do you have tips for future participants, what is not to be missed?
For future participants, I would recommend just enjoying this very special conference for and by young researchers. It has a great atmosphere and a good combination of content and opportunities for personal development. Mix and choose your workshops and career chats depending on what you would like to learn!
Want to know more about enable, or would you like to register? Visit the website here!
Interview by Eline Hugte
