What is it like to organise an international conference as students?

Organising the PPE conference is not a task for individuals who like to be solo players, but for a team! We, Ramona, Miriam and Joseph, think that joining the PPE team gives us the opportunity to connect our personal interests in a topic with the practical experience of organising an international academic conference. In fact, focusing in depth on one topic allows us to understand its various facets.

It is also a great chance to work closely with other students and master the challenge together. And above all, it allows us to have an impact on creating a better world, develop soft skills that are going to be very useful for our future careers and basically have an on-the-job training.  

My name is Ramona. I’m 26 and currently studying Philosophy, Cultural Reflection and Cultural Practice in my fifth semester at Witten/Herdecke University. I’m the coordinator of the conference and part of the participant support team.  My passion is to team people up and to share knowledge and experiences with others.

What motivates me the most is the idea of connecting people from all over the world, who share a similar interest in relevant global issues. Moreover, I’m trying to understand why the world is as it is in my studies because I have lived in and visited countries that belong to the so-called “global south”. As an intern I worked for an NGO which focuses on disaster relief that in most cases responds to “global south” countries. Seeing and experiencing global imbalance has raised many questions, which is also why I have chosen my degree programme. This year’s conference topic “World-Scale Justice: Beyond Global North & Global South?” will hopefully help me find possible answers. I really enjoy being able to connect my personal interest in an academic topic with the fantastic experience of leading a team and organising an international conference.

I came from Italy to Witten to study PPE in my Master's programme, discover the German culture and meet new, awesome people. Organising the conference is a great opportunity because it allows our team to have somewhat of an impact on making a better world. I believe that an improvement in and sophistication of the knowledge about this year’s topic will help researchers and policy makers to find better solutions to the problems of both the “Global South” and the “Global North”.

I can also learn skills that are very useful in general, like working in a team and prioritising work. I am also learning how to manage the marketing for a non-profit cause, create social media content and release my creativity in hopefully great designs. What I like most about the conference is that learning and discussing happens in different formats, in which participants are not passive listeners but have the chance to actively debate with speakers – an embodiment of the Witten spirit.