Doctoral School

Belgian Service Research Day – 10th edition: Paving the Way for a Journey as Service Scholar

Cluster

Career Management

Target audience

PhD candidates with a focus on service research within all Belgian Universities

Organizing and scientific committee

  • Prof. dr. Kaat De Pourcq, Economics and Business Administration (spokesperson)
  • Prof. dr. Katrien Verleye (UGent)
  • Prof. dr. Bart Larivière (UGent/KULeuven)
  • Dr. Bieke Henkens (UGent/KULeuven/UHasselt)

Lecturers

As co-founder of a cooperative consultancy firm, Peter Depauw has expertise on developing strategies for inducing systemic change – an ambition that is also present among service scholars. By sharing insights on how he strives for inducing systemic change as an individual person and representative of an organization, he can inspire service scholars looking for ways to make more impact with their research. During his keynote speech, he will also dedicate specific attention to the role that social media can play, as he achieved to acquire more than 10,000 followers on LinkedIn.

Fatima Khitous started her academic career at LIUC Universita Cattaneo (Italy), while looking into ways for expanding her impact as a scholar. As such, she teamed up with researchers from the Center for Service Intelligence at Ghent University, which resulted in a joint PhD. After obtaining her PhD, Fatima continued her journey as a scholar by joining Oulu University (Finland) as a postdoctoral researcher. During her keynote speech, she will share insights from her journey in searching for academic success and social impact while keeping a work-life balance.

Abstract

The “Belgian Service Research Day – 10th edition: Paving the Way for a Journey as Service Scholar” offers a platform for Belgian PhD students to create more impact. First, they reflect upon their journey as service scholars and share strategies to support one another. Next, the event features two keynote speakers that introduce them into positioning their research towards non-academic and academic audiences at the national and international level while keeping a work-life balance. Finally, we provide them with successful cases of collaborations between service scholars and practitioners.

Topic

The 10th edition of the Belgian Service Research Day (BSRD) course aims to address service research challenges faced by PhD students from UGent, KULeuven and UHasselt. These challenges were identified during a co-creation workshop organized on January 22nd, 2024. More specifically, PhD students were invited to reflect upon the most important challenges along their journey as service scholars and came up with issues linked to making a career as a service scholar:

  • how to receive support from and give support to others along your service research journey?
  • how to position service research towards non-academic and academic audiences?
  • how to balance your service research journey with private life?
  • how to engage in collaborations with practitioners for service research with enhanced impact?

Based upon these issues, we decided to center the BSRD on career management for service scholars with specific attention for keeping a good work-life balance.

Objectives

With the Belgian Service Research Day, we aim to encourage and enable PhD students to engage in service journeys oriented towards impact while keeping a good work-life balance. To achieve this end, they need to

  • analyse their journey as service scholars, which includes reflecting upon their motivation, drivers, goals, and ambitions
  • understand ways in which they can receive support from and give support to other along their service journeys and reflect upon ways to apply it to their own journey as service scholars
  • understand ways in which they can make their journey as service scholars more impactful through positioning their research to different audiences and reflect upon ways to apply it to their own journey as service scholars
  • understand ways in which they can make their journey as service scholars more impactful through collaboration with practitioners and reflect upon ways to apply it to their own journey as service scholars
  • understand ways in which they can keep a good work-life balance along their journey as service scholars and reflect upon ways to apply it to their own journey as service scholars

Dates and venue

April 19th 2024, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Directions

  • For those coming by car: parking Sint-Pietersplein, Sint-Pietersplein 65, 9000 Ghent - Parking in Ghent | Visit Gent
  • For those coming by public transport: get off at Gent Sint-Pietersstation: take the bus to the stop ‘Heuvelpoort’ (the following bus numbers pass there: 34 - 55 - 70 - 71 - 76 - 77 - 78 - 348 - 349). From the Heuvelpoort bus stop it is a 650-metre walk to Tweekerkenstraat 2.
  • Those who prefer a walk can also get directly from the railway station to Tweekerken campus on foot: +/- 1.6 km - 20 minutes' walk.

Programme

9h – 9h30 Welcome coffee and registration

9h30 – 11h00: Making an impactful journey as service scholar

               PART 1 – Welcome by Prof. dr. Paul Gemmel – Co-Founder of the Center for Service Intelligence at UGent

               PART 2 – Insights from other prominent service scholars from other Belgian universities

PART 3 – Practical exercise about journeys as service scholar: think-pair-share among PhD students

11h00 – 11h30: Coffee break

11h30 – 13h00: Towards more impactful journeys as service scholar through careful positioning and internationalization

PART 1 – Keynote speaker on positioning service research for non-academic audiences (45 min)

PART 2 – Keynote speaker on moving from the Belgian to the international research community  (45 min)

13h00-14h00 LUNCH

14h – 16h30:  Towards more impactful journeys as service scholar through research collaborations with practitioners

PART 1 – Testimonials from practitioners (1h15)

PART 2 – Testimonials from academics (1h15)

16h30 – 17u00: Wrap-up and key takeaways

17h00 – 18u00: Network event

Registration

We kindly ask you to register through this link and specify what time slots you will join us and provide us – if applicable – with information about any food restrictions.

Registration fee

Free of charge for Doctoral School members.

Number of participants

Maximum 80

Language

English

Evaluation method

100% attendance and active participation during the sessions.

After successful participation, the Doctoral Schools will add this course to the UGent PhD candidates' curriculum of the Doctoral Training Programme in Oasis. Please note that this can take up to one to two months after completion of the course.