UNIVERSITÄT ZU KÖLN

The International Collaborationand Exchange Program- ICEP  is an initiative launched by Dr. Anette Wu at Columbia University to promote exchanges between life science students around the globe, not only to share medical knowledge, but also to understand cross-cultural differences and foster leadership skills. With some 40 universities on 5 continents participating in the program - including some schools with tremendous global reputations such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cambridge, Heidelberg and numerous others - the program offers extremely interesting opportunities to connect with people around the world, participate in interesting lectures and workshops, and also the opportunity for a research stay abroad. The program starts in the fall with its lectures that end in the spring, after which there are online summer courses and the Academic Immersion Trip (AIT), a multi-day in-person meeting that will take place in Berlin and Halle in 2025.

As the University of Cologne had only just joined, we - the students in the Cologne cohort - had to familiarize ourselves first. After a short settling-in period, we took the necessary steps to keep Cologne in the program, as we believe that it is not only a great opportunity for us and future students, but also that the University of Cologne is a great asset to ICEP with its large student body and prestigious research. One of the necessary things was to establish a local chapter, elect a board consisting of a president, vice president, secretaries and public relations officer. Next, we looked for faculty members who could not only represent the University of Cologne, but also help select interested students or even give a lecture to present their research, among other things. We are very pleased that we have already been able to recruit three faculty members and are currently in talks with another professor. We have also managed to organize two face-to-face meetings with the cohort so far, and hopefully many more will follow. We are currently collecting information about possible scholarships for the twelve-month research opportunities. One member of our cohort has already managed to secure a research position at Columbia University in 2026. These research opportunities are for a possible dissertation and the student will work in one of the ICEP affiliated labs. In the future, we will establish our own admission and selection policies for our students.

Also, the president of our cohort and incumbent National Student Leader (NSL) has been invited to join a global group of individuals consisting mainly of NSLs from the schools and some faculty members to work on a paper on "Guidelines for Healthy Aging" to be finalized in a workshop during AIT in Halle. We hope to gain the participation of CECAD for this project.

So far it seems that we are taking the right steps to help Cologne stay in the program and we are all very grateful for this opportunity.

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Instagram: @icepchapter.cologne