From 12-14 November 2025, the ENHANCE Alliance convened leaders and early-career researchers for its annual VP Research Meeting, hosted by Gdańsk University of Technology. The gathering brought together Vice-Rectors for Research, doctoral school representatives, legal advisors, and young researchers from across the Alliance, including Politecnico di Milano, RWTH Aachen, TU Berlin, ETH Zürich, TU Delft, Warsaw University of Technology, and Chalmers University of Technology.
Shared Challenges, Shared Vision
Despite diversity in national systems and institutional structures, participants identified a common set of challenges facing early-career researchers across ENHANCE: limited funding, uneven supervision, administrative barriers, publishing pressures, and disparities in access to research resources. These realities surfaced most strongly during the Young Researchers Day, where doctoral candidates voiced their concerns and helped define shared priorities for the Alliance.
Key Outcomes and Commitments
Deepened Inter-University Cooperation: Partner universities committed to intensifying collaboration between their doctoral schools. There was strong support for joint supervision models – including cotutelle arrangements – and coordinated training across institutions.
Strategic Alliance Action: The Alliance formally launched a Research Working Group to coordinate joint research activities and future initiatives. Recommendations from young researchers will feed directly into ENHANCE’s next project proposal, ensuring their voices shape the Alliance’s future.
Empowering Young Researchers: Young researchers highlighted key areas where they want more support
Wellbeing & Community: strengthened peer networks, stress-management support, and improved integration for international PhD candidates
Supervision & Mentorship: clearer standards, structured feedback, supervisor training, and cross-institutional mentoring.
Skill Development: opportunities for leadership, teamwork, teaching, research management, and open science.
Mobility & Internships: calls for mobility grants, ENHANCE-wide internships, and placements with industry.
Funding & Resources: desire for micro-grants, better access to equipment, digital tools, open data, and licenses.
Towards a More Cohesive Research Community
This meeting reaffirmed a central truth for ENHANCE: though our universities operate in different contexts, we share a powerful drive to support early-career researchers and to build a genuinely collaborative European research ecosystem. By aligning efforts around shared goals, ENHANCE is advancing toward a future where young scientists have the structures, resources, and networks that allow them to thrive and move forward – together.
All photo credits included this article lie with Gdańsk University of Technology and BMN.
