Review of the Stuttgart Summer School
ITN-‐DCHMarie Curie Fellow: ESR5 Name: Gina Stavropoulou Institute: Ku Leuven
Undoubtedly, after participating in a summer school, one has to spend some time to reflect on all the new experiences that he has gained. Especially when it comes to a multi-‐cultural and inter-‐sectorial project as ITN-‐DCH, the advantages for the participants are many.
We could say that the benefits of a scientific summer school can be separated into two main categories: training and networking. Focusing first on the educational and training part, all the fellows had the opportunity to listen to very interesting presentations by leading figures in a multitude of different fields, explicitly or implicitly related to Digital Cultural Heritage. These presentations not only highlighted the multi-‐disciplinarity of the project but also gave the participants a very good insight into the state-‐of-‐the-‐art technologies and current research concerning Digital Cultural Heritage. The combination of lectures with relevant field workshops and very well organized tutorials, allowed the participants to acquire new theoretical and practical skills and at the same time refreshed and updated their existing knowledge. Additionally, the range of different subjects covered in the summer school helped in bridging the gab between the different educational backgrounds of the fellows.
Regarding the networking opportunities, I strongly believe that all the fellows benefited not only by the interaction with field experts but, more importantly, by the interaction between them. For me, being a fellow for only one week prior to the summer school, it was very important that I had the opportunity to meet with my new colleagues, socialize and understand the collaborative nature of the project. In my opinion, the first ITN-‐DCH summer school was more than successful in terms of team-‐bonding, as the first collaborative relationships started to develop and we got to know a bit about each others strengths and weaknesses. This was also beneficial for the progress of the whole project as, given our long-‐term cooperation, we will be able to exchange knowledge effectively, make the most of each other's expertise and offer our assistance where is more needed.
In my opinion, the Stuttgart summer school formed a very fruitful first meeting of all the fellows, partners and associate members of the ITN-‐DCH project. Hopefully the following summer schools will be of equal quality and will offer even more skills and networking opportunities to the participants.
