Economists, lawyers and political scientists gathered for three days in Viljandi at PhD Summer School

In the last days of June, the UT Viljandi Culture Academy hosted doctoral students and supervisors from the University of Tartu, Tallinn University of Technology and Estonian Business School, who participated in the PhD Summer School of the Doctoral School in Economics and Innovation. This time, the traditional summer school took place as a parallel event in Viljandi and via the web, involving a total of 75 participants.

During the three days, the participants took part in the lectures of invited guest lecturers, listened to the doctoral students' working paper presentations and gave them professional feedback, attended the doctoral students' poster presentations and used many opportunities for networking and creating new professional contacts.

Doctoral students had the opportunity to develop their presentation skills in a presentation techniques workshop conducted by Jason Mario Dydynski, a doctoral student in semiotics and cultural sciences at the University of Tartu. The workshop "2 + 2" organized by Anu Sööt, a lecturer in dance pedagogy at the Viljandi Culture Academy of the University of Tartu, took the supervisors on a walk to the famous Viljandi castle hills. The workshop developed the skills of noticing each other, perceiving personal contact and rising attentiveness towards the people around. In addition, all participants in the summer school had the opportunity to get to know Viljandi even better under the guidance of young local guides.

Among the working papers in Economics and Business Administration presented by the doctoral students there was a competition for the Vello Vensel Research Prize. The committee decided to award this prize to Nataliia Ostapenko, a doctoral student at the UT School of Economics and Business Administration, for the article “Taylor rule: the information content from FOMC transcripts”. The Doctoral School in Economics and Innovation gave out the Best Poster Award, which was predominantly won by Ilona Pavlenkova and Luca Alfieri, PhD students of the UT School of Economics and Business Administration, for their joint poster “Technology Adoption and Employment Dynamics: Effects of Automation and the Gender Pay Gap”. Congratulations to the award winners!

The Doctoral School in Economics and Innovation is organizing an international summer school for doctoral students for the 15th time. The summer school has always been a popular summer gathering place among doctoral students and supervisors, to improve the knowledge, make professional contacts, find friends and discover beautiful places in Estonia.