EPINOR Summer School light in Bergen 2017

Bergen had a great summer school! For more information and pictures see our Facebook page and our Twitter account! 

Summer school for PhD candidates in epidemiology, Bergen, May 29-30 2017. A collaboration between EPINOR and the Department of Global Health and Primary Care (IGS), University of Bergen.

• Tentative program
• Registrate here 
  Deadline: 20. April

Course description

“No, no, you are not thinking, you are just being logical.”
-Niels Bohr, nuclear physicist

Scientific training emphasizes logic and sound methods. Such tools are of course essential to good
research, but they are not enough. Intuition and conceptual leaps are just as important – and these
creative tools get much less attention in our scientific training. The purpose of this course is to help PhD
candidates develop their own natural capacities for intuitive thinking and perhaps learn new
approaches, with the goal of making them better scientists.

We have chosen “The Art of Scientific Investigation” as the title for this summer-school course. This is
the title of an excellent small book by William I.B. Beveridge. Beveridge was a laboratory scientist whose
observations are relevant to all research, including epidemiologic and clinical investigations. Even more
remarkable, many of his observations are as fresh today as they were 60 years ago. You can find a free
PDF version through OpenLibrary.org. If you prefer turning pages, an inexpensive softcover version is
available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Art-Scientific-Investigation-WBeveridge/dp/1517665469). You may find a hard copy useful for underlining text and scribbling notes in the margins.

The course will consist of reflections by senior researchers, class discussions, TED talks and other videos, and references to relevant books and articles. Students will be encouraged to describe techniques they use to unlock their creativity, and to learn from others what works for them. Combining such skills with the objective tools of scientific methods is not just a strategy for solving important problems – it makes research fun.

Kind regards,
The EPINOR Bergen summer school program and arrangement committee
Marianna Cortese and Carl Michael Baravelli, PhD candidates
Trond Riise, Rolv Skjærven, Allen Wilcox, professors
Elin Christine Gundersen, Daniel Gundersen, consultants