Overview

This is an interactive half-day preconference workshop (morning), jointly organised by EUPHA Chronic Diseases, EUPHAnxt and the Public Health Epidemiology EUPHA sections.

The workshop responds to the growing need for flexible, inclusive, and sustainable research pathways in public health, recognising that engagement with research is increasingly non-linear. Public health professionals may enter doctoral training at different career stages, combine research with practice or policy roles, or contribute meaningfully to research through collaborative and team-based models without following a traditional academic trajectory.

Rather than focusing solely on the decision to undertake a PhD, this preconference explores how public health professionals engage with research across the career life course, including doctoral training, practice-based research, mentoring relationships, and participation in large-scale collaborative science.

Aims

The preconference aims to:

1. Support informed and realistic decision-making about research engagement in public health across different career stages, recognising non-linear career pathways.
2. Explore diverse research–practice career models, including doctoral, non-doctoral, and hybrid routes within academia, public institutions, policy environments, NGOs, and industry.
3. Address the realities of doctoral training, including mental health, wellbeing, stress management, financial constraints, and risks related to power dynamics.
4. Equip participants with practical tools to design a personalised research engagement and career action plan aligned with their values, context, and life circumstances.

Learning Focus

Through hands-on reflective exercises, small-group discussions, case examples, and structured decision-making tools, participants will critically explore:

• Motivations for engaging in research at different stages of the public health career life course
• The structure and realities of PhD training across Europe, including workload, supervision models, uncertainty, and funding
• Mental health, wellbeing, stress management, and navigating institutional power dynamics
• Non-linear research careers and pathways beyond academia, including roles in public institutions (e.g., national research institutes), policy environments, NGOs, industry, and service-based research
• Development of a personalised research pathway and practical action plan

Rather than encouraging or discouraging any single pathway, the workshop empowers participants to make values-based, context-sensitive decisions about how research fits into their public health careers.

Reflective Data Collection & Knowledge Translation

As part of the interactive exercises, voluntary and anonymised participant reflection will be collected with clear transparency and consent. These reflections will focus on:

• Motivations and barriers to research engagement
• Timing and sequencing of doctoral and non-doctoral pathways
• Experiences of mentoring and collaborative research
• Structural and financial constraints across career stages

Facilitation & Expertise

The workshop is led by Prof. Sarah Cuschieri, associate professor and epidemiologist, who holds two PhDs, has authored multiple academic texts including “To Do or Not To Do a PhD? Insights and Guidance from a Public Health PhD Graduate” and has extensive experience supervising doctoral candidates and leading international epidemiological and public health research collaborations. She is the Vice-President of the Chronic Diseases’ Section and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health (FFPH) UK. She had a tenured academic-research post at the University of Malta, Malta and an adjunct professor position at Western University, Ontario Canada.

Dr. Angelo M. Pezzullo is tenure-track researcher at the Department of Life Sciences and Public Health of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, and President of the EUPHA Public Health Epidemiology Section. His research focuses on epidemiology, meta-research, and public health policy. He began his PhD at age 29 and brings a personal as well as academic perspective on navigating research careers in public health.

Ms. Jinane Ghattas is a scientist in the Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation (IME) team at the Cancer Centre of Sciensano, the Belgian Health institute. She is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Health and Society (IRSS) and the Faculty of Public Health at the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) investigating social inequalities in COVID-19 outcomes. Jinane Ghattas is the Co-coordinator of EUPHAnxt, the network for students and young professionals in public health, including early career researchers and policymakers. She holds a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and a master’s degree in public health with a focus on advanced statistical methods and health policy.

Dr. Elizabeth Grech is a medical doctor specializing in paediatrics based in Malta. She is currently pursuing an MPhil in Public Health at the University of Malta, with a growing interest in population health and preventive medicine. Elizabeth has been actively involved in research, including work related to the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to a better understanding of its impact on healthcare and public health systems. Her clinical and academic interests centre around metabolic disease.

Dr. Domitilla Marconi is a medical doctor and public health specialist with a focus on noncommunicable diseases, health equity, and global health. Her interest in public health began during her medical studies through research on migrants’ health in Italy and Spain. This interest was further strengthened during her public health residency through national and international experiences in pandemic preparedness and response, noncommunicable disease surveillance, and international cooperation. Domitilla is part of the EUPHAnxt Team as the coordinator of the Mentoring Programme, which connects early-career professionals with senior experts across Europe to foster professional development and intergenerational collaboration within the public health community.

Mr. Eduardo Antonio Bracho Montes de Oca is a final year doctoral researcher in Health Sciences at UCLouvain and UGent, affiliated with Sciensano, specialising in statistics (causal inference) applied to work, mental health, and teleworkers’ well-being. Together with colleagues from Belgium’s public health department, he co-initiated a bottom-up support group for PhD researchers within the institution. Two years on, the group runs seminars, discussions with upper management, and peer support sessions to foster a sense of community among researchers.

Ms. Sherihane Bensemmane is a public health researcher at Sciensano and part-time PhD candidate in Health Sciences at Ghent University. Originally trained as a neurobiologist, she spent four years conducting doctoral research in neuroscience (2012-2016), however graduating with a PhD was ultimately not possible. She therefore reoriented her career towards public health, building on her scientific background and personal interest in the field, and completed a Master’s degree in Public Health in 2018. She currently focuses mainly on primary care research and public health surveillance. In 2023, she had the opportunity to embark on a new PhD journey as a part-time doctoral researcher. Inspired by her own prior experience and by the challenges faced by fellow PhD researchers, she co-initiated, together with colleagues, a bottom-up support group for PhD researchers within the institution.

Preconference Programme