Workshop for Postdocs on the Creative Scientific Process

Are you finding it difficult to come up with a truly innovative idea for your next grant application? Do you ever feel stuck in an experiment, in familiar ways of thinking, even when you know there must be new angles to explore?

Science progress moves between two complementary modes: Day Science, the rigorous testing of ideas, and Night Science, the creative process where those ideas first emerge. Indeed, what we call the scientific method tells us what to do once we have a hypothesis – but where do these hypotheses come from in the first place? François Jacob famously called this part the realm of ‘Night Science’.

Drawing on the Night Science training framework developed by Profs Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher, this workshop will introduce thinking tools and exercises to help you foster exploratory thinking, interdisciplinarity and a general attitude of openness towards new ideas applied to your own research challenges. This course is provided by a certified Night Science trainer from the EPFL Research Office. 

This interactive workshop is designed specifically for postdoctoral researchers who want to:

• Generate novel, high-risk/high-reward ideas for grants and publications
• Overcome conceptual or experimental roadblocks
• Expand their thinking beyond conventional frameworks
• Reconnect with the creative side of the scientific process

• 08:30-08:45 : Breakfast + Welcome coffee 
• 08:45-10:15 : Session 1: Night science, openness, improvisation, takes two to think + Exercise
• 10:15-10:30 :Coffee break
• 10:30-12:00 : Session 2: Import/export, 2 languages + Exercise
• 12:00-12:30 : Lunch
• 12:30-13:30 : Session 3: Hypothesis is a liability, what’s the question + Exercise
• 13:30-14:00 : Wrap-up Discussion