_{(Photocredit: DAAD/Michael Asaad)}
Around 500 doctoral and postdoctoral candidates participated in the 7^th edition of the German Science Day that was organized by the DAAD Cairo office on the 18^th July 2018. The German Science Day is considered one of the most important platforms in Egypt for promising doctoral and postdoctoral candidates to engage with the German research landscape and for attendees to get insights from the attending experts and initial feedback for their planned research in Germany.

This year’s German Science Day opened with a panel discussion giving the participants an overview on the academic career opportunities in Germany. This was followed by a presentation on the German Research Landscape.  Throughout the day, participants then attended the numerous presentations that were given by the experts that have flown in specifically to attend this highlight of the German-Egyptian Academic year to inform these outstanding PhD and Postdoc candidates about the latest research and development in their respective fields.

From Freie Universität Berlin Prof. Dr. Sahar Sodoudi, Professor at the Institute of Meteorology and Dr. Hanan Badr, Research Associate at the Media and Communications Institute were invited to actively participate in the German Science Day. Prof. Sodoudi gave an interesting presentation entitled “How can urban planning influence the urban climate change” while Dr. Badr gave an insight on comparative political communication across national systems and theory advancement in social sciences.  Furthermore and for the first time, the DAAD also invited, beside 4 other universities, a graduate school to present its opportunities. Dr. Forough Sodoudi represented the Berlin Mathematical School (BMS), which is a joint graduate school of the three renowned math departments of Freie Universität Berlin, the Technische Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. In addition to the presentations, the experts also offered individual counselling sessions to carefully selected Phd and Postdoc candidates to enable them to establish initial contact with the professors, to present their proposals and to get valuable insights and feedback.

The number of attendees during the presentation on “How to do your PhD at Freie Universität” that was held by Ms. Hoda El Mahgoub, Head of the FU Berlin Cairo Liaison Office, were a clear indication on the immense interest in FU Berlin. In addition, the high demand on the info stand of FU Berlin but also of other participating universities clearly showed the strong interest of the Egyptians’ PhD and postdoc candidates in the German higher education sector.

Check out the photo album of the science day 2018 here