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Description
Graduates of medical studies and science-related fields who aim to go into academic and industrial research need to possess beyond excellent specialist skills also abilities to design and conduct experiments, interpret data, manage projects as well as to write scientific reports and papers. Yet existing curricula barely offer any education and training in academic writing, let alone in any of the skills mentioned above.
The project at hand aims to remedy this problem by offering short term intensive trainings using a learner-centred approach, where participants are guided to solve real-life problems and attain transversal knowledge and skills for conducting and publishing research. Objectives:
•Create learning materials for students on how to conduct clinical studies, on the ethics and legal provisions of data-usage of in research with humans/patients, how to write research papers and scientific report, on how to develop individual career plans, how to build an international cooperation network, how to identify financing opportunities, how to formulate a project idea and plan
•Provide a learner-oriented methodology for transferring the knowledge using real-life problems where students can apply their knowledge.
•Organise a series of short term intensive trainings composed by workshops
Results:
•A methodology with practical use cases and workshop guidelines
•A handbook with tools and methods for research-oriented transversal skills
•A series of intensive short-term trainings
•Publications in peer-reviewed conferences
The impact envisaged includes the modernization of curricula as well as the introduction of modular flexible workshops in the career development resources at universities. In addition it will improve the skills sets of students and young researcher in medical and science-related disciplines.
Long-term benefits include a higher quality of research and scientific publications as well as increased access to third-party funding through project grants.
Summary of project results
1. ENSURE was a project dedicated students (4th & 5th year, PhD), graduates and young researchers of medical studies and science-related fields, who aim to go into academic and industrial research and who need to possess beyond excellent specialist skills, also abilities to design and conduct experiments, interpret data, manage projects as well as to write scientific reports and papers.
Yet existing curricula barely offer any education and training in academic writing, let alone in any of the skills mentioned above. Education in these study programs tends to be lecture-based with no learned-based approaches and work in small groups.
The project at hand aimed to remedy this problem by offering short term learning / teaching activities using a learner-centered approach, where participants were guided to solve real-life problems and attain transversal knowledge and skills for conducting and publishing research. The trainings were composed by sets of modular workshops which can be combined flexibly.
2. Summary of activities
A1 - Kick-off meeting organized in Tromso – Norway (21st of March 2019 – 22nd of March 2019)
A2 - Elaboration of training materials (IO1 + IO2) – (March 2019 – October 2019)
A3 - Students`selection (September – October 2019)
A4 - Learning / Teaching Activities organized in Sibiu – Romania – 23rd – 29th of October 2019
ME – Multiplier Event – Dissemination Conference of Project Results - 20th of December 2019
3. Results
The project results were:
•A methodology with practical use cases and workshop guidelines – IO2 Learner-based Methodolgy
•A handbook with tools and methods for research-oriented transversal skills - IO1 Handbook of Tools and Methods
•Learning/Teaching/Training activities organized between 23rd of October – 29th of October 2019.
Additional quantifiable results are:
• dissemination materials (website, flyers, posters, press releases)
• a multiplier event for dissemination with national and international participants.
Summary of bilateral results
The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) involvement in the ENSURE project was very valuable for the project results, intellectual outputs and the overall success of the project.UIT transferred teaching in Scientific Competence through the ENSURE project to Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (LBUS). Scientific competence in medicine deals with basic principles of medical research methods in general and clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, knowledge assessment, patient safety and quality improvement work. The teaching focused on providing students with an understanding of how medical knowledge are developed, can be challenged and improved with the use of epidemiological methods and statistical analysis. UiT emphasised spiral learning by increasing learning demands from theoretical understanding of concepts to independent application of the concepts in writing or in presentations of group work and reports.LBUS and UiT are always tried to keep-up with the requirements of the labour market. Thus, they have shown openness on updating their topics, curricula contents and analytical programs of disciplines, and, by introducing, as needed, new disciplines or topics dedicated to transversal research-oriented competences and skills, much required by the nowadays labour market.As a direct consequence of attending the trainings and project activities participants from both universities will have strengthened their soft skills, communication, teamwork, creativity, flexibility, time management, and will have increased their competence in the management of project implementation. These competences can be further used in future cooperation activities like project mobilities, cooperation projects (seminars, workshops, conferences, etc)