Training Schools
Aim & regulations
Training Schools aim to facilitate capacity building on a topic relevant to the YONG-IN through the delivery of intensive training on a new or emerging subject. They can also offer familiarisation with unique methodologies or expertise. Training schools are typically, although not exclusively, considered to be for the benefit of junior researchers and PhD students.
COST supports the participation of two categories of participants, trainers and trainees. To apply for a grant, trainees must be admitted to a PhD programme, or affiliated to a higher education or research institution in a COST Member country as postdoctoral fellows or academic staff members. Applications are evaluated by the Organising Committee of the Training School.
The grant is awarded to support covering travel, accommodation and meal expenses. The reimbursement of incurred accommodation, meals, and local travel expenses in the country where the Training School takes place is paid as one item known as daily allowance. The daily allowance rate is determined based on the country where the event takes place. The daily allowance rates can be found on the COST website at http://www.cost.eu/daily_allowance.
Passed training schools
Communicating Science in a way you didn’t learn in academia. Enhancing skills to communicate research on transdisciplinary solutions to cross sectoral disadvantage in youth to non-scientists
11 – 13 October 2021 Madrid
The Training School addressed the need of researchers in the field of inclusion of disadvantaged youth in societies for skills to successfully reach out to other than academic groups, with a focus on communicating with media/newspapers/journalists and reaching policy and practice stakeholders.
16 participants from 13 countries and 5 trainers from 4 countries worked together to develop these skills. Participants brought a research topic of the Young-in action to the training school and worked on this topic in the various sessions. They formulated a core message and illustrated this message with photos. On this basis they made first steps in developing a media article and an infographic to communicate their research findings to policy makers and a broader audience.
A round table was organised to discuss and reflect ways and strategies to communicate scientific results to policy makers and a broader audience, with inputs by the SINC journalist Adeline Marcos Talva, the policy analyst Gabriela Jorquera and Pau Marí-Klose, Member of Parliament & Sociology Professor, Unizar. The inputs were received with great interest and panelists engaged in a vivid discussion with participants.
In a city walk through Madrids’ Lavapiés quarter, participant got interesting insights into current developments in the area of youth, migration and urban issues.
On the third day of the Training School a short anonymous online evaluation was conducted. Participants’ feedback was generally very positive. „It is impressive that you bring together the practical and theoretical aspects of science journalism and its communication strategy. I have learned many things I could not have imagined about how to present my academic work to my audience, how to make it interesting, how to manage time, and how to convey the key message of scientific results. It’s all about attracting attention, communicating effectively, and reaching the general public.” (written feedback in the anonymous evaluation form).
Many thanks to Francisco Javier Moreno Fuentes, the local organizer of the training school, for the enormous effort he made to host the Training School under restrictions of COVID-19.
Ursula Trummer and Sonja Novak-Zezula
„The origins, development and changing demands of education and welfare in 21st century “, Tallinn, Estonia , 2- 5 April, 2019.
The training school was organised jointly by the COST YOUNG-IN, Tallinn University Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Life Course Studies and Estonian Doctoral School of Behavioural, Social and Health Sciences. Three days were filled with intensive lectures, seminars and reading delivered by professor Jane Gingrich, Magdalen College of University of Oxford. The fourth day was devoted discussing the concept and measurement of youth transition regimes guided by professor Anu Toots and associated professor Triin Lauri, School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University.
COST YOUNG-IN provided 12 grants for PhD students and young scholars from Moldova, Spain, Switzerland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia.
“The three-day seminar given by Prof. Jane Gingrich provided a rich, sophisticated and critical account on how educational policies entangled and interrelated with social welfare system throughout the world. The seminar was all the more useful and insightful for those who study the evolution of education and social welfare in Central and Eastern Europe in the context of post-socialist transformation. The comparison of West and East stimulated vivid and thought-provoking discussions.”
(Petru Negura, participant, Free International University of Moldova, Chisinau)
“I was overwhelmed by the contents and the participants of the training school. It was very participative and intensive… I got what I was looking for!”
(Wagaw Berihun University of Applied Sciences and Arts North-Western Switzerland)
