Welcome Day
First-year doctoral students introduce themselves and their research project to the teaching staff and colleagues in a short 5-minute presentation.

Disciplinary activities
Each year students may attend specialised theoretical-practical courses in the relevant area and discipline, chosen from those scheduled annually by the Doctoral Course Teaching Board. Some courses are repeated every year (e.g. biostatistics course, laboratory safety, introduction to confocal microscopy), others change annually on the basis of topics deemed of common interest by the Teaching Board

Courses 2024
Courses 2025

Transversal activities
Each year, the University of Udine organises cross-curricular training activities, which enable students to acquire skills that go beyond the specialised knowledge of individual doctoral courses. Transversal training activities are organised within the following thematic areas:
- Cognitive and interpersonal (including activities related to the core principles of ethics, gender equality and integrity);
- Mobility (including language enhancement activities);
- Digital (including IT skills enhancement activities);
- Enterprise (including training activities related to exploitation and dissemination of results, intellectual property and open access to data and research products)
- Research (including training activities related to research management, knowledge of European and international research systems and research support activities);
- Career development;
- Communication.

Seminars
Two groups of invitation-only seminars are planned. The first group takes place in the spring, while the second group takes place in the autumn. The ‘Invited Seminars’ are held by internationally renowned scientists in the various fields of study of the course, such as epigenetics, DNA damage, transcriptional control, mitochondrial diseases, protein structure and function, and the immune system.

Annual report
First- and second-year PhD students are required to give a 30-minute seminar each year in English on their experimental results in front of the Academic Board and colleagues. After the presentation, a question and answer session is scheduled for further discussion. In addition, students are required to attend all seminars held by their colleagues.