On the 10th of March 2021, the “DoSSIER Doing Research - Part 1” workshop was held for 15 Ph.D. students who take part in the Domain-Specific Systems for Information Extraction and Retrieval (DoSSIER) project. This workshop is one of a series of training workshops that covers variety of helpful and important topics for the early-stage researchers of the DoSSIER project.

The workshop was led by two of the project’s advisors: Arjen P. de Vries and Leif Azzopardi. Many questions were discussed during the interesting and insightful workshop which led to a very interesting discussion. Some of the raised questions were:  what does it mean to be a good researcher? what is a scientific process? And how to make an impact in the field of information retrieval as a young researcher? One of the answers was to rely on existing research to improve on it but also produce something new. Early-stage researchers can produce helpful results that may later be used by industries and by other researchers.

During the four-hour workshop, the students were divided into four breakout groups to discuss different questions such as "researchers' goals of researching", "research collaboration with other researchers", and "doing internships in the different companies". Many crucial points were discussed regarding the issues that early-stage researchers might face during their internships, and how to prepare in advance to minimize the chance of having any issue or conflict of interest with the hosted companies. Moreover, there was an emphasis on finding the right research questions that make their research valuable.

Leaving aside serious matters, the atmosphere of the workshop was fun and there were lots of joking around. After all, research is also about having fun, meeting new people, making new friends, visiting different countries (when allowed), understanding other cultures, and enjoying the research process. Students left the workshop looking forward to part 2 of “DoSSIER Doing Research" workshop.