Collaborative research environment
Our PhD students will be the heart of our EndoTrain community and we aim to promote a strong culture of collaboration. The students will work within an international network of researchers, clinicians, and industry experts, participating in regular meetings, workshops, journal clubs, and collaborative projects. This creates opportunities for knowledge exchange across disciplines and sectors, helping to build a vibrant research community in digital endocrinology across Europe.
Across sectors and borders
As an MSCA-funded programme, international mobility is a key element of EndoTrain. Through secondments and research visits, our students will gain experience in different scientific, clinical, and industrial environments, broadening their perspectives and strengthening both their technical and professional skills.
Training beyond research
In addition to project-specific scientific training, EndoTrain places a strong emphasis on the broader skills needed to conduct responsible and impactful digital health research. Our students will receive training in ethics and responsible research and innovation, data governance and privacy, informed consent, FAIR and open science practices, research communication, entrepreneurship, leadership, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The programme aims to equip researchers with the skills needed not only to generate new knowledge, but also to communicate it effectively and contribute to the responsible development of future digital healthcare solutions.
Building a lasting community
EndoTrain brings together researchers, clinicians, and industry partners from across Europe to create an environment in which our students can build enduring professional relationships and collaborations. These connections, together with the skills and experiences gained throughout the programme, will serve as a launch pad for their future careers, helping shape the next generation of leaders in digital health research and innovation. Through their collective work, EndoTrain students will help establish new ways of understanding, monitoring, and managing endocrine health, laying the foundations for a new generation of data-driven, personalised healthcare.
Training activities
Career development
Each student will develop a Personal Career Development Plan in collaboration with their supervisory team. This living document helps identify training needs, career aspirations, and opportunities for professional development, ensuring that each student can make the most of the scientific, clinical, and industrial opportunities offered through the EndoTrain network.
Start-up form (link to follow)
PCDP (link to follow)
International secondments
Each of our students will undertake secondments with academic, clinical, and industrial partners across Europe. These experiences provide exposure to different research cultures, methodologies, and sectors, allowing students to tailor their training to their research interests and career ambitions while building valuable professional networks. These secondments will be formalised in the PCDPs and form an integral part of their training.
Secondment agreement (link to follow)
Network-wide activities
Winter and summer schools
EndoTrain will organise a series of network-wide winter and summer schools throughout the programme. These events bring together students, supervisors, and invited experts for intensive training, scientific exchange, and community building. Topics will include FAIR data and open science, dynamic hormone profiling, trustworthy AI, entrepreneurship, omics, patient-reported data, patient involvement, digital health technologies, and future directions in digital endocrinology.
First Summer school (Zurich, 2026) - link to follow
- Introductions; Student presentations
- I. Data: Introduction to FAIR data management & open science practices, data ethics, GDPR/legal aspects, data collection from wearables
- II. Dynamic hormone profiling: theory & practice
Further workshops and specialist course details will be announced as the programme progresses.
Local training opportunities
Every EndoTrain student will be enrolled at a host institution with its own doctoral training programme and professional development opportunities. These local training activities complement the network-wide programme and may include scientific courses, transferable skills training, career development workshops, teaching opportunities, and leadership training. Together, the local and network-wide activities ensure that students benefit from both the expertise of their home institution and the broader EndoTrain community.
For example, at UiB the Ferd Career Centre helps to provide tailored career development support and training for early-stage researchers across a wide range of transferrable skills: UiB Ferd Career Center for Early Stage Researchers | University of Bergen
Seminar series and collaborative learning
The EndoTrain seminar series will be shaped in collaboration with the students, providing opportunities to take an active role in developing the programme over time. Participants will contribute to identifying themes, inviting speakers, and leading discussions, while also presenting their own research and receiving feedback from peers, researchers, clinicians, and industry partners across the network. In this way, the seminar series serves both as a forum for scientific exchange and as a practical training ground for communication, leadership, and community building.
Programme for seminar series (to follow)
Other collaborative activities may include journal clubs, writing retreats, and peer-learning initiatives that evolve in response to the interests and needs of the students.
Open science, communication and dissemination
Open science and responsible research
EndoTrain is committed to ensuring that research outputs are shared responsibly, transparently, and in ways that maximise their impact. Throughout the programme, students will receive training in open science and FAIR data principles, research integrity, data governance, and the responsible use of digital health data and technologies.
Scientific communication
Students will develop skills in scientific writing, presenting research, and communicating complex ideas to different audiences. During the early stages of the programme, students will contribute literature reviews from their respective research areas to a collaborative open-access EndoTrain E-book, providing an overview of the scientific themes, opportunities, and challenges addressed across the programme while developing skills in communication and collaborative authorship.
Students will also be encouraged to present their work at national and international conferences throughout the programme. These opportunities support the development of presentation skills, facilitate networking, and help disseminate research findings to the wider scientific community.
Outreach and engagement
Digital health research has implications for patients, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and industry. EndoTrain therefore promotes communication and engagement beyond academia, helping students develop the skills needed to communicate complex research to different audiences and to understand how research can contribute to healthcare innovation and societal benefit. Activities throughout the programme will provide opportunities to engage with stakeholders and explore how scientific discoveries can create value beyond the research community.