Sylvia Thiele, Uniklinikum Dresden

Even though we were not able to interact face-to-face as we did the last two years, it was very inspiring to “meet” everybody again and listen to all the different projects and see what was achieved by the µBone members during the last challenging year. Our retreat started with a Pre-Day on which two different soft skill courses were offered. Fifteen µBone researchers took the chance and participated in the workshop “Academic Presentations with an Impact – Skills Training Compact” led by Dr. Silvia Scheinert or the workshop “Agile leadership” led by Dr. Renate Tewes and Christian Düro. The feedback on the courses was very positive. Thus, we would like to thank the organizers for their well-designed and effective courses. The second day of our retreat started with a brief introduction and the plans for the second Funding period given by Lorenz Hofbauer. Thereafter the young researchers were asked to present the progress of their projects by giving an 8 minutes talk. This was followed by an interactive discussion after each talk. On the third day of our retreat, we continued with the project presentations. After finishing, several researchers used the opportunity to meet in smaller groups to discuss their questions, thoughts, or suggestions in three separate „rooms“ designed for breast cancer, prostate cancer or Multiple myeloma.

At this point, we would like to say “Thank you” to all the speakers for their excellent talks, to the researchers who contributed with interesting questions and helpful hints, and for the enthusiastic atmosphere. We were very impressed by the performance and productivity of the next generation researchers despite the challenging last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All in all this online version of our Retreat was inspiring and motivating for all of us. As science and research do not tolerate standstill, let’s keep moving and look forward to meet face-to-face on one of our next meetings.