Aims and Scope | Format

General Overview

The Summer School is designed as a teaching and collaborative working experience. It will be carried out in the form of lectures, workshops, group sessions and presentations, with the connecting element between all activities being a grant proposal writing competition.

The lectures will be given by some of the most accomplished researchers in cognitive neuroscience who will present the state of the art research and theories on the topic of the Summer School and will highlight the outstanding questions and problems. Workshops will be led by the same faculty members and will be an opportunity for students to work on research problems, discuss theoretical issues and seek possible ways of solving them. Group sessions will provide the groups with the opportunity to develop their research proposal with help from their tutors and key researchers from the field. Presentations will serve to present group ideas and receive feedback from other students and faculty. The essential part of any lecture, workshop, group session and presentation will be an open discussion that will help resolve any related questions and evaluate possible ideas.

Grant Proposal Writing Competition

The whole programme of the School will revolve around a grant proposal writing competition, the purpose of which will be threefold. First, the students will be encouraged to actively seek, evaluate and use knowledge presented at the Summer School with a concrete goal in mind. Second, even though low key, the competition will encourage active participation in the Summer School. Third, having a common goal and working together in realizing it will promote group cohesion and team building.

The participants will be divided into seven groups of five. The task of every group will be to write and present a research grant proposal aimed at solving one of the open questions related to working memory. The proposal should include a clear statement of the research problem, developed from existing theoretical assumptions and empirical findings, and clearly defined research plan with a possible outline of experimental designs and an overview of expected results, along with their role in answering the stated research problem and furthering the knowledge in the chosen field of research. Continuous access to on-line information sources will help groups substantiate their proposals with current literature. Ample time each afternoon will be set aside for informal interactions and preparation of the grant proposals.

On the final day each group will have limited time to present the research proposal. A panel of Faculty members will score each proposal based on the creativity, scientific merit and feasibility. Proposals that will be based on multidisciplinary research and built on combining knowledge from different disciplines will earn additional points in the final review. Prizes will be awarded to the group with the best overall score.

Individual Student Presentations

To encourage students to present their individual work and research interests and discuss them with teachers and other students two forms of communication will be offered, poster presentations and short oral presentations.

The posters will be displayed throughout the duration of the School, giving the participants a possibility to support their discussion at anytime during the School. The individual oral presentations will be organised at the time when the students have already formed social ties, so that an opportunity to present their work in an organised setting and in a focused and coherent fashion will foster further discussion among them.