European Graduate School in Addiction Research: A contribution to the research education of PhD/MD students in Europe

Abstract

This paper reports on the European Graduate School in Addiction Research (ESADD), which contributes to the scientific education of PhD/MD addiction research students and promotes interdisciplinary cooperation and academic networking in Europe.ESADD is a two-year course, built first from a conceptual analysis of knowledge needs, then iteratively refined based on practical experiences. Its major components are six seminar weeks, homework assignments and an internship in a foreign research group. As part of an internal quality management system, comprehensive evaluations of the program took into account goals and objectives of the seminar weeks, workloads, study materials, relevance and usefulness of acquired skills, and organisational issues. Assessments of lecturers evaluated their teaching performance and the relevance of their topics. Forty-two out of 45 participants from all over Europe completed one of three courses carried out between 2008 and 2015. All reported that ESADD provided them with a broad overview of knowledge in the field, and 41 participants were satisfied with the quality of the seminar weeks.ESADD thus seems to be an effective way to educate PhD students from different research disciplines and to provide a comprehensive body of scientific knowledge and competencies on addiction-related research topics. Further ESADD enriches the higher education landscape in addiction education.

Workforce development: is there a paradigm shift?

“…We know very little about the extent to which these programmes and courses address the needs of the workforce or are taken up by the intended target group. Three papers in this special issue (Calder, Ainscough, Kimergård, Witton, & Dyer, 2017;Forberger, Riedel, & B€ uhringer, 2017;Pavlovsk a, Miovosk y, Babor, & Gabrhelik, 2017) offer a snapshot of educational approaches and highlight the diversity in training and education in the alcohol and drugs field.…”

“…The paper by Forberger et al (2017) highlights the attractiveness and value of multi-disciplinary approaches for those pursuing research careers in the alcohol and drug use field. It reports specifically on the work of the European Graduate School in Addiction Research (ESADD) which aims to educate and support PhD/MD students developing a research career in the alcohol and drug use field in Europe.…”

Incorporation of Universal Prevention Curriculum into established academic degree study programme: qualitative process evaluation

“…On the other hand, we see a lack of activities and studies focused on study programmes that were terminated or were struggling for survival are over-represented. The issue of evaluation is a very important aspect that can provide a better understanding of the entire process of developing new universitybased study programmes specialising in addiction (for example in Germany) (6).…”