On 16-17 September 2013, SEERC organized the 8th South East European Doctoral Student Conference (DSC 2013) with great success. The event took place at the main campus of the University of Sheffield International Faculty in Thessaloniki and this year was organized in collaboration with the University of Belgrade.
With its programme divided in three thematic areas (Research tracks), the aim of the conference was to further facilitate the exchange of knowledge between young researchers and to consolidate the established network of scholars currently undertaking research in South East Europe.
Prof. Panayiotis Ketikidis, Chairman of the conference and Mr Nikos Zaharis, SEERC Director welcomed all the participants and opened the conference with the key note speech by Assist. Prof. Panagiotis D. Bamidis, School of Health Services, Department of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki on "Silvergaming for body and mind health: neuroscientific principles, software design, pilot deployment and commercialisation."
During the two-day conference more than 40 papers were presented while two workshops took place, one on "Successful Intergenerational Learning in Enterprizes: Demonstration of the DIGL tool" presented by Dr. Ana Vivas, Head of the Psychology Department of the International Faculty and Dr Antonia Ypsilanti, Lecturer at the Psychology Department, and one on "Public Engagement and Impact of PhD Researchers" presented by Dr. Tim Vorley, Dr. Robert Wapshott from the Management School of The University of Sheffield.
The event concluded with the best paper awards. Esida Gila Gourgoura received the best paper award of Research Track 1: 'Enterprise, Innovation & Development' for her paper on "Investigating the causality between Financial Development and Economic Growth in the developing countries of Europe: Evidence from Albania and Turkey", Magdalena Kostoska received the best paper award of Research Track 2 "Information and Communication Technologies" for her paper entitled paper "Cloud Service Portability Opportunities" while the best paper award of Research Track 3 : "Society and Human Development : Psychology, Politics, Sociology and Education" went to Dimitra Athanasiadou for her paper "The relationship between dysfunctional patterns of families' response to the illness and symptom severity in adolescent patients with anorexia nervosa at illness onset: A gender specific approach".
The Doctoral Conference brought together researchers and succeeded in establishing collaborative links between disciplines, for testing the ground with innovative ideas and for engaging the wider academic community. All papers presented during the event will be included in the conference's proceedings that will be published in due course.
