In this report, we summarize the activities of the executive board over the past year in support of the association’s development and the ADSV community. This year, we focused on maintaining a regular schedule of events and reviving the much-loved winter retreat. In addition, we introduced several new events and initiatives. A particularly noticeable development was that representatives from doctoral schools and other associations increasingly reached out to ADSV to organize collaborative events.

2025-2026 Executive Board (12 members)

President	Hanrong Hu
Vice-President	Felix Peters
Treasurer	Linda Wedemann
Event Manager	Eliane Duperrex
Event Manager	Anna Carla Farano
Event Manager	Katharina Müller
Event Manager	Arsh Yusuf Shaikh
Logistics Manager	Loïc René Camille David
Logistics Manager	Sibo Wang
PhD Coaching Manager	Ekaterina Gorbacheva
SV Happy Hour coordinator	Dominic Dall’Osto
SV Happy Hour coordinator	Pitt Meyer

We’re pleased to welcome board members in green to their first year on the executive board.

Abstract

The executive board aimed to establish a more regular schedule for its most popular events, such as board game nights, yoga sessions, and larger events held every few months (see sections below). We also adapted Tea Time Tuesday into Beer Time Tuesday and introduced a table football tournament. The Events team (Eliane, Anna Carla, Katharina, and Arsh) did an excellent job organizing these activities.

A particularly noticeable change this year was that representatives from doctoral schools and other associations increasingly reached out to ADSV to organize collaborative events. The logistics for these collaborations were handled by Dominic and Pitt.

This year, we also held our large ski retreat in Torgon, bringing together around 100 members of the SV community. Despite a few accidents and logistical challenges, the retreat was very well received by participants. This was truly a team effort, with special thanks to Eliane for arranging the chalet and to Felix for contributing his experience from the previous year’s retreat.

In addition, we finalized the PhD Lab Issues roadmap, which provides guidance for students considering switching labs and outlines recommended steps to take. This initiative was originally started by last year’s board and was successfully continued by Ekaterina.

Finally, a big thank you as well to Sibo and Loïc for organizing all of our board meetings, and of course to Linda for keeping our budget in check.

Internal organization

Shared ADSV / AESV room

We continue to maintain SV1510 together with AESV. The room is primarily used by AESV as a study space and is therefore mostly occupied by them. For ADSV, it mainly serves as a storage space for board games, Tea Time Tuesday equipment, and leftover snacks and drinks from events. However, storing larger materials is currently not possible.

A key lock box has now been attached to the receptionist desk in the SV hall, next to the ADSV office, to facilitate access. We aimed to check and organize the room twice per year, although this could likely be done more regularly in the future, potentially following a system similar to lab duty rotations.

Happy Hour Fridge

We continued to maintain the fridges on floor 0 of the AI building. The fridge keys were unfortunately broken over the years, and a solution with glued-on locks has been proposed. Similar to the office reorganization, the fridges could also benefit from more regular checks of stored food, particularly regarding expiration dates and spoilage. This task could potentially be integrated into the responsibilities of the Happy Hour coordinators.

Aligro Card

We have 2 Aligro cards placed in the key lock box. Please remember to transfer the ownership.

Finances

Linda did a fantastic job as Treasurer this year, especially thanks to her experience from the previous board. During a period of financial cuts, she was particularly effective at following up and securing the funds we needed.

Communications

Sibo has updated the mailing list for adsv members to the doctoral programs + [email protected] + [email protected]

In addition, we implemented an ADSV board 25/25 calendar with the [email protected] email address to coordinate the board members, as well as to minimise schedule conflicts with the events organized by other associations/institutions.

Goals and objectives

Our association has 3 goals:

Represent the interests of Life Sciences PhD Students
Integrate PhD Students into a community on which they can depend for perspective, friendship, and inspiration
Promote scientific and social interaction between PhD students engaged in Life Sciences research

Represent

This goal addresses the challenges that PhD students may face during their doctoral studies, including mistreatment, excessive expectations, and mental stress. We aim to support and protect the basic rights of PhD students while fostering a healthier environment in which pursuing a PhD can be a positive, exciting, and fulfilling experience. To support this goal:

We finalized the PhD Lab Issues Roadmap, which provides guidance for students considering switching labs and outlines recommended steps to take.
We organized a special edition of Happy Hour together with the doctoral school’s PhD representatives to promote discussion and strengthen connections within the PhD community.

We recognize that the integration of satellite campuses into the ADSV community is still lacking, as differences in logistics and funding make organizing activities across campuses more challenging. Nevertheless, we have seen several encouraging initiatives from other student associations (namingly Neuro-X/BMI and PolyDoc) that aim to strengthen their local satellite-campus communities. We are pleased that some of these groups have reached out to ADSV for their event promotions, allowing us to support their efforts and contribute to advocacy for PhD students across campuses.

Integrate the PhD Community

We continued our efforts to strengthen connections within the PhD community through several initiatives:

ADSV Sweaters & T-shirts: We revived the ADSV merchandise design created in 2020 by Amber Bowler. In addition to sweaters and T-shirts, we also introduced an ADSV socks option. We would especially thank Eliane and Felix for organizing. To facilitate the organization and logistics of the orders, payments were collected in advance.

PhD Coaching: We continued the PhD coaching program and, following last year’s efforts, organized a PhD mixer event to encourage interactions between first-year PhD students and their coaches.
WhatsApp Community Platform: We implemented a WhatsApp channel for event announcements and community interaction among PhD students. Within the platform, dedicated groups were created for various types of support and activities, including housing, hiking, running, and other shared interests.

Sibo also curated an ADSV event calendar (subscribable with https://go.epfl.ch/adsv-events.ics). We encourage the board members to update the calendar in a timely manner.

Promote scientific and social interaction

Events have been a major part of this year’s activity. We here again thank our fantastic event team (Eliane, Anna Carla, Katharina, and Arsh) for keeping the events running. Here is an overview of the key and regular events:

Recurring events:

Happy Hour (once per month) – The SV Happy Hour is a monthly event sponsored by the SV faculty, with ADSV serving as the organizing body, together with the support of a participating lab. We would once again like to sincerely thank Pitt and Dominic for their major contributions to the organization and logistics of these events. In particular, we would like to highlight the following points:

The doctoral schools have regularly reached out to ADSV to co-organize Happy Hours and PhD hiring day events. We see this as a valuable opportunity to promote ADSV to prospective PhD candidates and strengthen our collaborations with doctoral programs, while also recognizing the importance of maintaining appropriate financial support and budget allocation for ADSV’s contributions.
Similarly, ADSV was also approached to assist with the organization of the SV Summer Party. We greatly appreciate Pitt and Dominic for handling much of the logistics. However, if the scale of this event continues to grow, it may be beneficial to involve more members of the executive board in the organization and coordination efforts.

Yoga (once per month) – This year, we continued the initiative introduced two years ago of inviting a certified yoga instructor for our yoga sessions. We would especially like to thank Eliane for maintaining and organizing this activity. The event has had a stable and regular attendance of approximately 10 participants per session.

Game Nights (once per month) – The event team organized several board game nights throughout the year, bringing together regular participants for evenings of games, pizza, and drinks. In addition, we hosted a special edition of the game night on May 18th featuring a murder mystery dinner-themed party, which was particularly well received by attendees.

Tea/Beer Time Tuesdays (every other week) – The goal of this event is to provide a recurring and informal gathering where PhD students can drop by, meet new people, and enjoy a well-deserved coffee, tea, or snack together. However, as participation gradually declined, we introduced a new initiative by transforming some editions into “Beer Time Tuesdays” held at Satellite. In this format, ADSV sponsored the first pitcher of beer to encourage participation and create a more social atmosphere.

Special events:

Aareboot (August 10th, 2025) – This was a new addition to the ADSV event program and was greatly appreciated by participants. We received 28 sign-ups, with 22 participants attending the event. For future editions, we recommend collecting a deposit in advance to improve attendance commitment. We also advise including clear disclaimers regarding safety responsibilities and potential fines in the case of late return of the Aareboot equipment.

ADSV “Lake” Happy Hour (August 29th, 2025) – Due to unfavorable weather conditions, the event location was changed from the lakeside to the Poly Grill at the Rolex Learning Center. We would especially like to thank Eliane and Katharina for organizing the shopping and logistics. Compared to last year’s lake happy hour, participation was lower, likely due to the weather conditions. However, hosting the event directly on the EPFL campus proved to be logistically easier.

ADSV Summer Hike (September 27th, 2025) – Following a suggestion from Eliane, we selected a hiking route around the Dent de Vaulion. This hike provided a beginner-friendly experience for newcomers to Switzerland, while also offering the advantage of a relatively short travel time from Lausanne and Renens. For future editions, we recommend discussing with the treasurer improved reimbursement strategies or purchasing tickets only after participation has been confirmed. We also strongly recommend creating a WhatsApp group in advance to facilitate communication and logistics coordination among participants.

PhD Mixer (October 15th, 2025) – This event was especially dedicated to first-year PhD students, while all members were warmly welcome to join, meet the new students, and volunteer as “coaches.” We would especially like to thank Anna Carla for organizing it.

Halloween Pumpkin Carving (October 30th, 2025) & Halloween Party (October 31st, 2025) – Eliane and Pitt organized the pumpkins and kindly provided transportation using their car to facilitate the logistics of the event. The entire board contributed significantly to the organization of the Halloween party, which was greatly appreciated. For future editions, we would nevertheless recommend establishing a clearer organizational plan in advance, including a detailed timetable and a more explicit distribution of tasks among board members. We would also like to thank all attendees for their impressive costume efforts, which contributed greatly to the atmosphere of the event.

Ski Retreat (January 30th to February 1st, 2026) – This year, we once again organized our large ski retreat in Torgon, bringing together around 100 members of the SV community. The retreat was very well received by participants and featured several highlights in addition to excellent weather conditions:

The food options were particularly appreciated by the community, with special thanks to Eliane and Katharina for preparing the recipes and coordinating the meals.
The scientific session was well perceived by attendees and added a valuable academic component to the retreat.
The ice-breaking events organized by Anna Carla and Katharina are well-received by the participants.
The helping hand suggestion from Linda greatly helped us with the coordination.
We greatly appreciated the inclusion of additional activities for non-skiers, which helped make the retreat enjoyable for all participants.

At the same time, we identified several points that should be improved or clarified for future editions:

The chalet reservation process should ideally begin already during the summer, while keeping Torgon as a reliable backup option if necessary.
Separate WhatsApp groups for beginner skiers should be prepared in advance, and participants should be clearly informed beforehand that ski passes will only be distributed once they feel confident skiing independently. Safety should remain the highest priority.
No hard alcohol was ever provided by ADSV during the retreat, and we would like to reiterate this policy clearly for future events.

We additionally took notes and already put them in the 2026-2027 folder for the next board.

Table football tournament (May 22nd, 2026) – Anna Carla proposed the idea of hosting a table football tournament, which we organized during the final Happy Hour of the year. We would especially like to thank Pitt for bringing the table to the SV Café.

Summary
With this, I would like to express my sincere thanks to every board member on the team. None of what we achieved this year would have been possible without your dedication and hard work. I wish all the best to the next year’s board.