Feedback comments from Dr. Sun’s workshop at the University Of Ljubljana (UL), Slovenia 3. – 4. April 2014 Participants Faculty of Medicine, UL - 88 participants Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, UL - 6 participants Faculty of Pharmacy, UL – 6 participants Faculty of Electrical Engineering, UL – 3 participants Biotechnical Faculty, UL – 7 participants Veterinary Faculty, UL – 10 participants National Institute of Chemistry – 15 participants National Institute of Biology – 10 participants Institute Jožef Stefan – 16 participants Oncology Institute – 3 participants General hospital Slovenj Gradec– 3 participants University Clinical Center Ljubljana – 5 participants University Clinical Center Maribor – 3 participants Community Health Center Ljubljana - 4 participants Agricultural Institute of Slovenia – 4 participants LEK d.o.o. – 7 participants Austria, Croatia, Macedonia – 4 participants Other or unknown – 92 participants Total attended: 286 Statements of the participants PhD Students I think this is an excellent workshop. I think one time this should be organized for mentors and supervisors. That kind of lectures should be obligatory for 1st year graduate students and their mentors/professors. May be the ideas to get from questions - from presentations – or talk with colleges. Idea – finding ideas – could be looked from several points: look from paper; look in industry to improve; how to see something new, how was not yet be used. The find summery was too long. I loved it! The course could be extended on the topic – how to write good project proposals – especially important for PhD students. 1 Great workshop! Wish to get more info what is actual (in) or out – but I believe it also depends on geographic basis (British vs. Americans Journal). I would appreciate to send me your PPT presentation to fill up my notes. Thank you! I wish I have heard these lecture before. But very good advices for the future. Thank you very much. The summary was not according to what was taught in the how to give a talk session. Quick summary – few conclusions we can take it home for more years! I will remember too much talking at the end. Do what, you teach! You restored my faith in the existence of a true researcher and reminded me in the joy of taking your time and doing research. Great speaker with a lot of good advices. This course should be done periodically in Slovenia. Very nice workshop, very useful. I think these kinds of seminars are really useful and everyone starting research should attend it to avoid unnecessary self-teaching how to cope with research. Also experienced researchers should attend it to improve their skills of teaching and mentoring. Mr. Henry, thank you very much for this outstanding and fun workshop. I enjoyed every slide of it. Definitely one of the best presentations I have ever attended. I'll probably keep this in mind for at least 3 days, no, no, for 3 months or even better 3 years. It would be nice to have professors who also listened to that workshop …. Excellent! Thank your very much! I like the presentation was relaxed, useful also for more experienced researchers. I would recommend or wish the lecture was given within Bioscience studies. I am sorry my colleagues did not hear it. I would/will suggest to leaders of Bioscience doctoral/PhD program to include the lecture in the program. The lecture gave me the »spree« to write/finalize the PhD and to do experiment. One of the best talks I have ever attended to, so thank you very much! I admire your energy and presentation style! I believe the topic of good experimental design is too often ignored in our study programs and then even though most of the ideas presented here might be common sense to many people, it is very important for us to hear them. Great workshop to which everyone in science should attend early on in the carrier. Very useful! I like the included good and bad examples. It was a pleasure to listen lively presentation. It was easy to follow. Sometimes its good useful that somebody shows you/tell you what are you doing wrong, where you can improve. Thank you for that! I especially enjoyed the part on how to write the scientific article. I also appreciate the first part of the lecture in the importance of thinking. Thank you for excellent lecture and presentation. About topic 1 – I think that it is impossible to check every kit/solution/protein …. That we are using in our lab (for some you can't get information) … 2 Excellent practical tips and suggestions, very straight – forward presentation. I would like to listen to it again in a year or two, after gaining more experience and research. Postdoctoral fellows According to experimental design, I found it very interesting to confirm that in my research, I am doing the same. It was nice to hear …. Generally, it was very good workshop (informative, applicable and well presented). I have really enjoyed. I wish I'd listen to the workshop earlier. The lecture is great and so far that it identifies issues shared by many starting scientists. Being an 'a' student and becoming and experimentalist and scientist on my own, wish I had this lecture a few years ago. Perhaps you could make lectures for senior scientists as new, so that they could get more out of our work. Proposed title: »How to be a good lab head/boss: getting the most out of your postdocs«. Really enjoyed. Some topics should be more densely presented (effective). An excellent workshop! It would be great to hear also something about grant applications. Very nice course. There were so many good suggestions every researcher should hear at the beginning of his/her professional carrier. Thank you. I should hear this when I was graduate student. Great lecture. Masters students One of the most useful lectures I attended in my life. Awesome speaker. These topics usually aren't cover during studies – so thank you. Great – I loved your enthusiasm! As I worked in clinical research, I would like to have heard more about how to design a clinical research, not only laboratory techniques. This workshop should be presented to the young students of science (UL: BF, FKKT, FF, MF) at the very beginning of their studying period! And maybe later once more! Workshop was very useful! Thank your very much! I liked very simple comparisons. This workshop was really interesting, practical and just amazing in portraying what a future research scientist really needs to know. I am glad that I had opportunity to participate in it at the beginning of my career. Undergraduate We should have this as an obligatory part of our medical study! It should be obligatory for our teachers /professors to obey. Otherwise congratulations for and effective presentation, at least few of facts said here. I liked it very much. 3 All medical students should have listen to that kind of lectures. It'll be very useful for everyone who is going to have a presentation in future (either professors or students or anyone who is giving lectures or working on a research). Add more details or examples of good/bad ideas and good/bad choice of literature would be good idea. Showing bad examples was very good! It would be usefully to give this lecture (or how to make a good presentation) to our professors! (You might add that respecting time limitation for the presentation is also very important). Very good, clear, fluent, educative and funny presentation of how to make a good research, write an article and present it. Thank you very much. Good energy and very inspiring. Excellent lectures, I hope to see more either at MF or on time, I will definitely read more on this. They have made us eager to go back to my research work as soon as possible and try cut the new guidelines, suggestions, ideas. I especially liked point 3, since the actual writing is the scariest part for me as I sometimes slightly inferior as an inexpedient young researcher. I admire the structure of the workshop – just enough information with sufficient consolidation of key concepts. Well done! I would appreciate some comments about establishing a good mentoring relationship and how to find collaborators. Too bad the workshop was only two days. Outstanding. Your workshop/and presentation was really informative in terms of clarifying the optimum approach to scientific tasks (experiment design, writing etc.). I enjoyed it very much and would like to thank you for giving me more self confidence that I really want and need to do science. I wish there was more information about how to decide if the research article is a trustworthy source of information in other words how you can tell if the research was rigorous enough for the results to be valid if you are a beginner and have very little experience in the field. I'm undergraduate research assistant, so I have participated in a research but I haven't actually designed it, so this was a very useful experience for the future. Others Thank you. It was great and I can tell you that my PhD and Postdocs who attended the course we also satisfied. They comment that they can see themselves in your examples and they will work further to take the risks by themselves. I think this kind of lectures should be available to every young researcher at the begging of their research pathway. Most of us is pushed in the research »swim or sink«. A very useful workshop – I only regret that I didn't have the chance to hear all this things at the beginning of my career. It would make many thinks much easier. Very interesting workshop! I think it should be a must for graduate and postgraduate students as well as researchers. Best regards and best wishes for your future work! Brilliant! Excellent course. It would be great to reach about these topics in a book. 4 I would like to recommend checking doc ear sci literature suite. Dear Mr. Henry! I wish I've heard these lectures of yours four years ago. Beautiful presentation of how a scientific paper should be done, from an idea to the very end. I'm just attending the last year of my specialization that is physical medicine and rehabilitation. I must write a paper to attend the exam and although I want do my research in a lab. It was very helpful for me. Thank you very much and I hope, next year, may paper will be finished and excellent. Nice presentation of this well-known field how to approach new field! How to handle different approaches with colleagues. Just excellent – inspiring, passionate, funny – I just want to get to work! 5