Host Company/bioCEED/Prime workshop on BIO298
Since spring 2015, the internship course Bio298 has collaborated with 12 to 15 companies, organizations and research institutes to invite students to experience and blog on life as a professional biologist.
After completing four terms of the course, we invited to a workshop for the collaborating institutions to exchange experiences and feedback. bioCEED’s WP leader Gro I. van der Meeren hosted this meeting at the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), which is the company partner of BioCEED. Seventeen participants joined the workshop from eight companies, bioCEED and the University in Bergen. The companies ranged from academic research companies to NGOs, research foundations, local and national governmental research institutes.
The aim of the workshop was to collect and create a joint evaluation report including the most successful parts of the bio298 course, as well as the parts that would benefit from improvements. The workshop was opened by a presentation of the IMR by Research Director Geir Lasse Taranger, followed by presentations of bioCEED and the PRIME project by Vigdis Vandvik, Gaute Velle and Anne-Laure Simonelli. The presentations were followed by a discussion, led by Bio298 course leader Gaute Velle. To prepare relevant discussion points, a query with an extended list of questions was sent to all partners some weeks ahead of the workshop. The query included scaled and open-end questions regarding the responsibilities as host, experiences with the students, expectations and disappointments. The discussion at the seminar was focused on challenges, on the relationships with the students and the university, and to administrative and other practical details.
Following the workshop, the course organizers have made a plan how to implement the feedback into the organization of the course. In general, the hosts are very pleased with the opportunity to host students, but would like to receive more information concerning aims, insurance, economic issues and expectations. Also, the hosts would like to be able to meet the students prior to hosting them, and be able to give and receive formalized feedback to and from the students. We agreed to have a similar meeting each year.
We would like to thank all participants for a stimulating and friendly workshop and look forward to further cooperation!
Read the blogs written by internships students here: https://biopraksis.w.uib.no/
Photo: Elisabeth/NIBIO
