Our annual retreat will take place from June 3^rd to June 5^th at the Eurotel Victoria in Villars-sur-Ollon (VD).

All personnel working on an NCCR project are expected to be present for the whole duration; people working in an NCCR lab are welcome (subject to space availability).

Programme

There will be one scientific session per interdisciplinary project chaired by the project leader (6 in total), two poster sessions and a strategy session. All PhD students, post-docs or scientists contribute to the event with a talk or a poster.

Furthermore, we have invited an external speaker (Prof. Meibom Anders, Laboratory of Biological Geochemistry, EPFL) to give a talk. You will also have the opportunity to hear and welcome  Prof. Marko Kaksonen who will join the NCCR on June, 1st. Finally, inspired by the success of the last Pre-seed workshop, we have asked one of our post-docs and former participant to the workshop to give his testimony on the road to entrepreneurship. On the side, he has actually launched a research project on the diversity of DNA in 1,000 beers and is trying to get it funded with unconventional ways via a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

2015 retreat edition will also include a Best posters award session where three posters will each receive a very generous and useful prize. Surprise! Announcement of the winners will be done during the Concluding Remarks Session on Friday 05.

The social events planned this time include a very special Festive Apero to celebrate our budget renewal and a Theme Hiking as part of our team-building activities. The latter will be orchestrated by professional guides specialised in the fauna and flora of the area. We really look forward to it.

Don’t forget to bring along proper walking shoes, a warm jacket, a rain jacket, a water flask, a hat, sunglasses and sun protection cream!

The retreat will start on Wednesday June, 3^th at 13:15 (arrival and sign-in) until Friday June, 5^th at 14:45. You can consult the programme.

More infromation

• To get to Villars-sur-Ollon you will need about two hours by train with one change at Bex. Train timetable information and booking your ticket on-line
• The Eurotel Victoria is 7 minutes on foot from the Villars-sur-Ollon train station
• For further information, please contact Phaedra Simitsek
• Programme of the reatreat 2015