1st Arqus Ph.D. Week for Careers outside of Academia

From 13th to 15th October 2021, the Center for Knowledge and Innovation Transfer (ZWI) of the University of Graz will hold the Arqus PhD Week for Careers Outside Academia.

Around 60 participants – doctoral researchers, PhD graduates and career development experts – from the seven universities of the Arqus alliance will meet with local entrepreneurs to work together. In case of travel restrictions, there will be an online version of the event.

In addition to cooperating in an international and multicultural environment, the main aims of the PhD Career Week are to train doctoral researchers and PhD graduates to develop skills for careers outside academia. Participants will:

become aware of their competencies,
be empowered to make them explicit to others,
learn to develop entrepreneurial (and intrapreneurial) projects
be trained in opening up professional opportunities and increasing their employability.

How to apply

Funding and eligibility: Doctoral researchers and early postdocs from the Arqus partner universities can apply for a travel and accommodation fund at their home universities after they have been selected for participation.

Application form for participation.

The deadline for the application is 19th May 2021. You will be notified of a successful application in June. Please email the application form to the coordinators at your home university:

Bergen: Rosa Nogueira
Granada: Inmaculada Yuste.
Graz: Doctoral Academy Graz
Leipzig: Antje Nolting
Lyon: Romain Thinon
Padua: Elena Pavan. (Instructions for applicants from the University of Padua)
Vilnius: Vida Lapinskaitė

Programme of the event

The full programme for PhD/postdocs workshops will be published in due time. Among the contents of the Career Week are:

Mapping the skills acquired during doctoral training
Entrepreneurship creativity workshop
Preparing international job applications
Meet and greet at Centre for Knowledge and Innovation Transfer, University of Graz
Pitching competition
Career dinner

In addition to the workshops and activities aimed at helping the participants in securing a career outside academia, the workshops related to entrepreneurship and creativity will allow doctoral researchers and early postdocs to become aware of what entrepreneurial spirit and behaviour mean. For example, participants will improve their competence in working with others, problem-solving, communicating, becoming self-aware and recognizing personal competencies.

Participants will also learn to recognize and explore entrepreneurial opportunities by being creative, identifying an opportunity and developing it, identifying its value proposition and pitching it.