The JPhD2020 conference, of two days of duration, counted with a complete programme of invited talks, poster and oral presentations, and workshops. During the oral talks, the event counted with two parallel sessions, with many active participants in both of them. 

The closing of the conference included the awards ceremony, which awarded fantastic prizes to the best oral communications and poster presentations. All the registered participants could vote. The awardees of this edition were:

Best Oral Communications:

• First Prize for Irene Anton (NN group, ICMAB) and the presentation "Ophtalmological application of bacterial nanocellulose"
• Second Prize for Artur Romanov (SUMAN group, ICMAB), for the presentation "High frequency response of REBCO superconductors in the framework of the FCC study"

Best Poster Presentations:

• First Prize for Amanda Muñoz (NN group, ICMAB), for her poster "Evaluation of polysaccharide-based polymers biointeraction using Caenorhabditis elegans"
• Second Prize for Pau Molet (NANOPTO group, ICMAB) and his poster "High-throughput nanofabrication of metasurfaces with polarization dependent response and application to Quantum Dot solar cells"

Some Facts & Figures of the conference:

The meeting has gathered more than 80 attendees from 11 different programs/institutions. From this participants, 18 were presenting posters, 24 oral communications, and 4 conducted workshops on different areas (3D printing, thermoelectrics, C. elegans for nanomaterials testing and superconductivity). 

Four senior speakers were invited to talk about their research experience. The conference lasted two days, from approximately 9 am to 5 pm. 

The organizing committee was formed by 20 PhD reserachers from 4 institutions (ICMAB, ICN2, IMB-CNM and UAB). They probably slept only a few hours during the previous days!

The closing session counted with some final words of representatives of the organizing institutions: Anna May (ICMAB), Frances Pérez-Murano (IMB-CNM) and Eva Pellicer (UAB).

According to Anna May (ICMAB) "One of the most important part of the conference, is what the organizing committee takes from it: It’s a learning experience. You see the bigger picture, and what is behind the scenes. You develop your teamwork skills. You get to collaborate, not only with PhD fellows, but also with the administrative staff. You learn to share and co-edit documents online. You strenghten your networks, you put faces into names, you get to know a lot of people from different centres...

... You gain experience in abstracts reading and reviewing. You can decide what to add in the event, innovative ideas, invited speakers of your choice, workshops that you like... You get to form a great team and make friends with the rest of the organizing committee, you all have the same objective, you all want to reach a common goal. You expand your views on science and research. It’s not all about being in the lab, it’s also about communicating science, transferring it to the society, being entrepreneur, moving around".

We hope that this organizing committee pass their enthusiasm to the next generation of PhDs who will, for sure, organize the JPhD meeting next year, either in an online or presential format!

Congratulations to all the participants, and long live the JPhD meeting!