EUTOPIA Impact School 2025

In November 2025, the third EUTOPIA Impact School took place, organized by the Graduate Academy of TUD. Doctoral students from various disciplines at the EUTOPIA partner universities took part and received an exclusive training program on the topic of science communication.

During the three-day online workshop, participants had the opportunity to work individually on their scientific texts and to try out various storytelling and presentation techniques.

In this interview, a participant gives a more detailed account of the event’s content and talks about her positive experiences.

In addition, all participants created their own video pitches as a final project. Their aim is to give anyone interested an insight into their diverse research projects.

We clear the stage for the extremely creative and informative contributions of our EUTOPIA early career researchers!

Isaiete Augusto Jabula | Crossed dreams, different destinies

Isaiete Augusto Jabula is a doctoral researcher in Gender Studies at NOVA University of Lisbon. Her research aims to seek to understand how gender dynamics and value systems can help explain the practice of marrying girls under the age of 18 in Guinea Bissau.

Marie Chamontin | Studying the links between burnout and insomnia: immersion in the daily life of a clinical researcher

Marie Chamontin (CY Cergy Paris University) studies the links between burnout and insomnia symptoms. As a psychologist, she evaluates a therapeutic group of adults. She will take you along with her in her daily life as a clinician-researcher, summarising the question guiding her research and the resources at her disposal. She will also give you some recommendations that you can apply immediately if you have symptoms of insomnia.

Arida Fauziyah | Cracking the trophic code of mud crabs Scylla spp. for a sustainable aquaculture in Indonesia

Arida Fauziyah is a PhD student in mangrove ecology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her research explores how ecological knowledge, particularly trophic niche ecology, can guide the transition of mud crab aquaculture from conventional ponds to sustainable mangrove-pen systems. Focusing on South Sulawesi, Indonesia, her work links species biology, food-web dynamics, and spatial planning to identify where aquaculture can be developed without degrading mangrove ecosystems. Through an ecosystem-based approach, this research provides science-based guidance for sustainable coastal livelihoods and aquaculture planning.

Lena Friebel | Micro City Macro Drama – From Tiny Death to Grand Design

Lena Friebel is a PhD candidate at the Chair of General Microbiology at the Dresden University of Technology. During her PhD, she studied the impact of a bacterial form of programmed cell death known as “cannibalism”, on the formation of biofilms in Bacillus subtilis. This video illustrates the similarities between human cities and bacterial biofilms, and briefly demonstrates the scientific approaches used to reveal the effects that cannibalism can have on biofilm architecture.

Foroogh Ghorbani | Neural Superheroes

Foroogh Ghorbani is a PhD researcher at Dresden University of Technology working in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Her research focuses on how the brain segments continuous information into meaningful events and how neural rhythms support attention, perception, and decision-making. In this video, she explains these processes using the metaphor of neural “superheroes,” showing how different brain waves work together — and what happens when this coordination breaks down in clinical conditions such as ADHD.

Nikolina Lednicki | Government Crisis Response Strategies, Public Trust, and Disaster Communication during the Croatian Earthquakes

Nikolina Lednicki is a doctoral researcher at the University of Ljubljana, studying crisis communication and public trust in government. Her research focuses on the Croatian earthquakes and how trust shapes people’s responses during disasters. She examines how reassuring and motivational messages influence perceptions of credibility, fairness, and transparency during recovery. Her aim is to help governments communicate more effectively when communities are most vulnerable.

Elisa Montori | Black Entrepreneurship

Elisa Montori is a PhD Candidate at the Venice School of Management – Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her research has focused on entrepreneurship. More precisely, on entrepreneurial identities and motivation, and how they are narratively constructed. This short video focuses on the story of Black founders making sense of their nuanced, complex entrepreneurial journeys, rooting them in their appraisals of racism.

Diana-Ioana Nemeș | Is a football academy just a place to train or a place to belong?

Diana-Ioana Nemeș (Babeș-Bolyai University) is a PhD researcher in Communication Sciences, focusing on sports branding and digital communication. Her research explores how football clubs and their youth academies function not only as sporting institutions, but also as social and cultural actors within their communities. Using the case of FC Universitatea Cluj, she examines how brand identity, digital communication and storytelling can shape loyalty, belonging and prosocial behaviour. In this video, she explains how a football academy can become a space where identity and community are built, not just players.

Xiaohan Shi | Between Two Silences: The Hidden Sexual Education of Chinese Youth in Spain

Xiaohan Shi is a PhD researcher at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), working in the field of communication, gender, and migration studies. Her research explores how digital media functions as a space of sexual socialization for young adult children of Chinese migrants in Spain. Using online surveys, in-depth interviews, and participatory photovoice workshops, she examines how young people interpret digital content, build meaning, and navigate questions of sexuality in the absence of formal guidance. The project highlights how issues of culture, silence, and belonging shape young migrants’ intimate lives.