Support for young research staff
The KOF Swiss Economic Institute proactively supported young research staff in 2022.
The training of young research staff forms a key component of what KOF does and covers more than just academic aspects. The mentoring programme for its PhD students introduced in 2021 became firmly established in 2022.
This programme is designed to help doctoral students to meet the challenges of studying for a PhD. They are advised and supported in this process by senior researchers at KOF. However, these mentors also assist them with any questions or concerns that lie outside the field of their research. The programme helps to build a relationship of trust between a doctoral student and an experienced researcher, who is neither a PhD supervisor nor a line manager.
In addition to this programme, the various seminar series regularly held at KOF last year provided the 13.6 (in full-time equivalent terms) PhD students and three post-docs with the opportunity to present their work and familiarise themselves with external researchers’ projects, thereby refining their own methods and learning about other fields of research within economics. In addition, a number of conferences and workshops offered the chance to present and discuss research.
A workshop entitled ‘Job Search and the Labour Market’ was organised in collaboration with other Swiss universities and enabled a few of KOF’s PhD students to present their work to some of the world’s leading experts. KOF once again organised the Young Swiss Economists Meeting of the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics in 2022 in order to promote dialogue between young economics researchers in Switzerland.