The 4th catchily-titled EuHEA PhD Student-Supervisor and Early Career Researcher (ECR) conference took place from 6th–8th September 2017 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Students and ECRs can attend alone but are encouraged to bring their supervisors or other senior colleagues with them, who are then allocated as discussants.
With a format inspired by the UK HESG meeting, papers are pre-circulated and each given an hour session. The student or ECR first presents their paper for 25 minutes, followed by a 15-minute discussion from an allocated senior delegate. The floor is then opened to the audience for a further 20 minutes of discussion. This format enables students and ECRs to gain experience in both writing and presenting their work, in addition to receiving detailed feedback and suggestions for future directions.
45 papers were presented in total, and the overall standard of the work was exceptional. Four parallel sessions ran, roughly grouped into the themes of: economic evaluation of medical technologies; economics of health system financing, regulation and delivery; determinants of health behaviours and consequences; and patient and provider decision making and incentives. So there really was something for everyone. There were also short 10-minute presentation sessions. I really enjoyed these quick overviews and felt that I learnt more about people’s research from these than a traditional poster session.
The atmosphere is purposefully relaxed and friendly, and it was great to see students and ECRs contributing to the discussions just as much as their senior supervisors. The conference also seems to attract repeat attendance and so is beginning to form a supportive network of junior health economists who now meet annually. As one of the organisers of the first conference in Manchester, a personal highlight for me was seeing delegates who had originally attended as PhD students returning this time in the role of supervisor as their careers have progressed.
Excellent discussion from @amitabhchandra2 at the #EuHEA PhD workshop pic.twitter.com/ycuzzlawmB
— AES (@AesSecretaria) September 7, 2017
Ieva Sriubaite had the rather daunting but invaluable opportunity to have her paper “Go your own way? The importance of peers in the formation of physician practice styles” discussed by Prof Amitabh Chandra from Harvard, who also gave the plenary speech. Whilst the conference programme was packed, there were still plenty of opportunities to socialise, and a cultured trip to The Hermitage Foundation.
An initiative to come out of the previous conference is the formation of a EuHEA Early Career Committee, which will represent the interests of health economists at the start of their careers within EuHEA. I had the great honour of being elected to chair this committee, and we held our first committee meeting during the conference. Watch out for updates on our best idea to come from this meeting – a conference cruise.
For now, hold 5th–7th September 2018 in your diaries and book your flights to Sicily for the 5th conference. If that location doesn’t convince you to attend I don’t know what will.
Credits
