The PhD Support Programme EUCACIS 2016 — 2020 comes to an end in August 2020. The programme has covered three regular years and one extension year, which was an enriching time not only for the EUCACIS fellows, but also for its staff and all involved people.
We are proud of our fellows who worked hard and diligently throughout these years and have completed or reached the final stages of their PhD. By August 2020, six of the twelve EUCACIS fellows have submitted their theses and three of them have already defended and obtained their degrees. The rest are either in the process of finalising their thesis drafts or waiting for final defence after university protocols and publication criteria are fulfilled.
We are delighted to have seen o ur fellows grow from PhD students into junior academics and researchers over these years. The events organized within the EUCACIS programme have also assisted them in forming a strong community of their own but also extending their international academic and professional network. In addition to working on their theses and further developing their skills, the fellows also published extensively whether in local, regional or international academic journals.
Throughout the four years of EUCACIS, we have organized four international conferences, three PhD schools (plus one in the extension period) and one three-week research training stay for each fellow. We were in close touch with the fellows with continuous online coaching, individual mentoring and, not to forget, support and help in view of the challenges that the PhD students faced on their long journey of completing a doctoral thesis. Finally, our fellows and members of the EUCACIS network have contributed to our publishing series, "EUCACIS in Brief" and "EUCACIS Online Paper" in which overall 27 articles were published.