Estonian Doctoral School Career Conference

Presentation: Janika Leoste – “I didn’t stay in one place – and that was a conscious choice”

Roundtable for PhD holders: "Career Paths After the PhD – What’s Next?"

This one-hour workshop introduces early-stage researchers to LinkedIn as a powerful tool for visibility, networking, and impact. Participants will learn why social media marketing matters in today’s research ecosystem where discoverability and visibility are key for impactful research and collaboration. The session shows how to translate academic work into engaging posts, build a professional profile that reflects one’s research identity and grow a meaningful network. Practical examples, simple posting strategies, and best practices for consistency and authenticity will be shared.

In film editing, everything begins with how we look at images. Do we see them as building blocks for a story, or as moments that move us? This one-hour workshop explores attention as a core editorial skill, focusing on narrativity and authenticity. Drawing on Roland Barthes’ concept of punctum, we first analyze still photographs to identify the small details that affect us, then extend this approach to moving images. Through film excerpts and discussion, we ask: what might punctum be in cinema? The workshop reveals how preconceptions shape our viewing and how openness can transform it. Grounded in a decade of teaching experience, the pedagogy is framed by Gert Biesta’s notion of subjectification and concludes with the concept of “chance-seeking,” a valuable tool for editors, researchers, and scholars. Prior requirements / preparation: Bring along your favourite photograph

Translation and multilingualism are present in many stages of research, from data collection and analysis to writing and publication, yet they often remain unnoticed. This workshop introduces the idea of translation awareness and explores how language choices and translation practices can influence research processes, meaning, and interpretation. Drawing on key concepts from Translation Studies, participants will reflect on methodological, epistemological, and ethical aspects of working across languages. Through a short introduction, an individual reflection task, and group discussion, PhD students will be encouraged to consider how translation affects their own research projects and to develop a more conscious and transparent approach to multilingual research contexts.

Prior requirements / preparation: Before the workshop, registered participants will be sent a short set of reflective questions to help them consider their research from the perspectives of multilingualism and translation.

The workshop explores ethical challenges that arise when qualitative researchers work with sensitive narratives and other forms of multimodal data. Using illustrative examples from studies involving vulnerable groups, the workshop examines ethical implications of employing creative strategies such as composite narratives, data construction, and anonymizing transformations of text, images, or videos. Fabrication approaches are highlighted as effective tools for protecting privacy and enhancing confidentiality, especially in digital or public contexts where traditional anonymization may be insufficient. At the same time, the workshop addresses how researchers can balance these protective measures with the need to preserve the integrity and meaning of participants’ stories. Participants will reflect on how to navigate these ethical decisions and will gain practical guidance for making defensible methodological choices across diverse qualitative materials

Does a Researcher Need to Think About Personal Branding?// Aija Sakova, PhD, TLU Head of Business Cooperation and Knowledge Transfer 

Networking for PhD Students: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow The Estonian Association of Doctoral Students (Doktorantide Selts)