On 14 November, the 3rd IQS PhD Students Day was held, organized by the doctoral students themselves. The main objective of the event is to give visibility and share the research carried out by the different research groups at the university, with contributions from the members of the three IQS doctoral programmes: Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Business and Territorial Competitiveness, Innovation and Sustainability (CETIS).
The 3rd IQS PhD Students Day once again gave visibility to the research conducted at IQS, with the presentation of the prizes for "Present your thesis in four minutes," the best poster, and the best oral communication.
The event was opened by Dr Salvador Borrós, Director of IQS, who addressed the doctoral students as “our future talent,” and Mr Jordi Martí, President of AIQS Alumni, who conveyed to them the “need that society has for the experience of future doctors.”
On this occasion, the event featured a guest, Dr Filippo Piccinini, Senior Assistant Professor at the University of Bologna, Italy, who gave the opening lecture of the day entitled “Opportunities in 2025 for boosting publication rates and securing short-term fellowships in Europe.” Dr Piccinini highlighted the changing future of doing a doctorate, especially at the present time, with great technological opportunities and great networks of relationships between different research groups.
Project and competition presentations
On this occasion, predoctoral researchers were able to present their thesis projects in different formats, both orally and with a poster.
In addition, the “Present your thesis in four minutes” contest was also held. This represented the elimination phase of this competition, which aimed to showcase the thesis projects across the twelve universities in Catalonia and is organized by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation (FCRI). Out of all the presentations, the doctoral students themselves chose three, one for each IQS doctoral programme, which will be the ones that represent the school in the contest that will be held by Ramon Llull University (URL), where who will represent this university in the final FCRI contest will be chosen among all the schools that form part of the URL.
The winners of “Present your thesis in four minutes” were:
- Ms Ana Arias, Trying to cross the “valley of death” with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, from the PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
- Mr Pol Martín, The covert mission against cancer, from the PhD in Bioengineering.
- Ms Michelle Schwarz, Rejecting green products: how does a threat to gender identity impact sustainable consumer behaviour, from the CETIS PhD.
There was also a presentation of posters that were exhibited throughout the event. The posters were evaluated by IQS master’s and undergraduate students who attended the event using a form on the IQS application.
The winners of the poster contest, for each doctoral programme, were:
- Mr Oriol Rojas Serra, Evaluating two derivatization techniques for trace-level nitrite quantification via LC-MS/MS, from the PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
- Ms Núria Moral Blázquez, Lessons learned from Lafora disease: role of glycogen metabolism in GABAergic neurons in epilepsy, from the PhD in Bioengineering.
- Ms Marina Ferraz, Measuring quality and sustainable development in higher education: an analysis using university rankings, from the CETIS PhD.
As a new feature, this year oral presentations were made by doctoral students who had already participated in the previous editions of the conference. A multidisciplinary jury, not involved in any of the doctoral theses, was responsible for choosing the winning presentations, which were unanimously the following:
- Mr Oliver Stratil, Electrification of CO2, Capture and Utilization by Induction Heating and Plasma Conversion, from the PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
- Mr Jordi Guixeras Carreras, Design of glycolipid-functionalized extracellular vesicles for their selective targeting to dendritic cells, from the PhD in Bioengineering.
- Ms Ying Ni, Too Good to Go or Too Risky to Buy? Understanding consumer’s purchase intention toward, from the CETIS PhD.
The jury consisted of Dr Rosa Nomen, Dr Julià Sempere, Dr Filippo Piccinini, and Dr Francesc Amaro, who highlighted the excellent quality of the presentations and the difficulty they had in making the decision.
All prizes were awarded by the members of the jury.
Other activities during the event
During the event, the three PhD programmes at IQS were presented by their coordinators: the PhD in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, coordinated by Dr Jordi Abellà, the PhD in Bioengineering, coordinated by Dr Xevi Biarnés, and the PhD in Business and Territorial Competitiveness, Innovation and Sustainability, coordinated by Dr Ramón Palau.
There was also a presentation of the grants for Industrial Doctorates awarded by the AGAUR – Government of Catalonia, as an excellent way to do research through university-business collaboration, to promote both the job placement of new doctors and to encourage research in companies to implement or improve their innovation processes.
Finally, a roundtable with experts was held, moderated by Jordi Martí, in which four IQS doctors participated: Dr José Luis Yagüe (QIAGEN), Dr Mario López (IHT), Dr Joan Gilabert (consultant in clinical trials), and Dr Nour Chams (UAB). They shared their personal experiences and a pleasant discussion was held with the doctoral students about their concerns and decisions to be made regarding their future.
The 3rd IQS PhD Students Day was sponsored by the company IHT and AIQS Alumni.
