Designing science
Description:
The student workshop aims at giving students the fundamentals of designing scientific research.
The primary objective is to strengthen the scientific approach of participating students.
Program:
During the workshop, the ways to come up with a research question and how to design a research project will be discussed, including the known-unknown-question-axis, the scientific method, null-hypothesis vs. alternative hypothesis testing, creativity vs. previous knowledge of the field through literature review, etc.
The workshop will be guided by Professor Christian Gortazar. Participants will be asked to prepare a few articles that will be provided before the workshop will take place. The discussion topics listed above will be illustrated with Professor Christian Gortazar’s own expertise and experience, by summarising the known and unknown in his area of research. Together with the students, he will list research questions that remain to be answered. The group of students will be invited to choose one research question among those, and design the research project to answer it, after stating their hypothesis, and designing the experiment(s) to test it.
Professor Christian Gortazar is the head of the Wildlife Disease Department at IREC University of Castilla-La-Mancha, Ciudad Real in Spain. His research deals with different aspects of wildlife ecology and wildlife disease control, main themes including mycobacteria and other intracellular pathogens, vector-borne diseases, and parasites such as mange and several helminths. Current research projects include the control of bovine TB in wild ungulates, research on the role of deer in bluetongue epidemiology, and a national survey on paratuberculosis (Johne’s disease) in Spanish wildlife, among others.
Target Audience:
Master students and PhD students with a background in biology, medicine, veterinary medicine or mathematics who are interested in research and wildlife.