Second-year D-Phil student Arun Joseph recently presented his research at the 7th Nationwide Conference on Student Research, thanks to a scholarship from the Oxford-Berlin Research Partnership.

The Conference took place on 4 -5 October at Humboldt University Campus. Hundreds of students from across Germany attended, along with two MSc and two DPhil students from the University of Oxford (including Arun) whose papers were selected from 14 submitted as the result of a call advertised by the Oxford Student Union.

Arun investigates when it is safe to take patients in neurocritical care off ventilators, and he says, “I place great emphasis on networking in order to improve the quality and impact of my research, and founded an international network on my research topic, which has so far facilitated five online talks with guest speakers and attracted hundreds of attendees.”

 

The Berlin conference therefore provided an exciting prospect for him to share his research through a presentation entitled ‘Ventilator Weaning and Extubation in Neurocritical Care’.

Arun found that his training and experience in talking about his research to a non-specialist audience stood him in good stead. He has developed an engaging narrative about his topic of study, which, he says “draws listeners in to the story of a patient with a traumatic brain injury and the team of health professionals who care for him”. His twenty-minute talk was one of four in the Health and Medicine parallel session, and was followed by a lively discussion.

He adds, “The conference was an excellent opportunity to network with people from different disciplines, which I’m hoping may lead to future collaboration”.

The Oxford Berlin Research Partnership was founded in the aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016, when the University of Oxford negotiated a strategic research partnership with the four universities that make up the Berlin University Alliance: Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

The partnership, formally established in 2017, aims to strengthen the direct ties between German and British researchers and students, and to deepen scientific cooperation. It covers all areas of academic research as well as initiatives involving the museums and libraries in both cities. The goal is to support cutting-edge research, including cross-cutting thematic and inter-disciplinary work; knowledge exchange and public engagement; and develop the careers of early career researchers and doctoral students.

For more information on Arun’s research, click here.