NCU News
Upcoming events
Strengthening the University’s Social Engagement – Training
From November 16–27, Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) will host a training session for academic staff titled “Social and Civic Engagement in Practice: Socially Beneficial Education and Research.”
This training opportunity is open to UMK employees in teaching, research, and research-teaching positions who are interested in strengthening the social dimension of education and increasing the social impact of their research.
The program aims to develop competencies related to designing social initiatives, implementing innovative teaching methods, and conducting research that addresses contemporary social challenges.
The training programme consists of eight thematic modules:
- University-Community Engagement in the European Higher Education Area;
- Models of Collaboration with the Wider Community;
- Integrating Social Engagement into Academic Curricula;
- Supporting Student Initiatives;
- Co-Creating Knowledge: Community-Engaged Research and Citizen Science;
- Evaluating Social Impact;
- Internationalisation of Social Engagement;
- Recognition of Social Engagement and Academic Career Development.
The modules are highly interactive and workshop-based, drawing on practical case studies, collaborative work, and the exchange of experiences. Participants may register for selected modules or for the entire programme.
The training will be delivered by Prof. Bojana Ćulum Ilić from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Rijeka (Croatia) - an expert in university-community engagement, civic education, and service-learning. She has extensive experience in international projects and initiatives dedicated to advancing universities' third mission, including work within the YUFE (Young Universities for the Future of Europe) Alliance.
Language: English (minimum recommended proficiency level: B1);
Dates: 16-27 November 2026 (Monday-Friday);
Total workload: up to 40 hours (up to 4 hours per day), scheduled either between 8:00-12:00 or 14:00-18:00.
Those interested in participating are invited to complete the registration form. Applications will be accepted until the 20th of October 2026. The number of places is limited. If the number of applications exceeds the available places, a selection committee will make admission decisions based on the information provided in the application form.
Participants who complete the training programme will receive a certificate of participation.
Questions? Feel free to ask Magdalena Stremplewska or Aleksandra Śnieć from the Department of International Partnerships and Educational Mobility: civic-yufe@umk.pl, 56 611 43 48, 56 611 20 98.The programme is organised as part of the YUFE ( (Young Universities for the Future of Europe) initiative.
IAS Excellence Lecture: linguistic iconicity
The Institute of Advanced Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University organises a free event as part of the IAS Excellence Lectures, a series of lectures organised by the Institute under the patronage of the Rector of Nicolaus Copernicus University. The next lecture will take place on November 18 at 5:00 p.m.
As part of this series, researchers representing Priority Research Teams are invited to present the most important recent achievements in their fields in an accessible and inspiring way. These meetings provide an opportunity to learn about pioneering research, participate in discussions, and exchange ideas.
On November 18, Prof. Bodo Winter (University of Birmingham, United Kingdom) will deliver a lecture titled “The linguistic sign isn't arbitrary.”
Abstract: Iconicity is the perceived resemblance between aspects of a sign’s meaning and aspect of a sign’s form. It occurs across spoken and signed languages, including iconic prosody, co-speech gestures, onomatopoeia, ideophones, and basic vocabulary. A recent wave of experimental, corpus, and typological research has revealed that iconicity is far more widespread than previously thought. In this talk, I will review recent empirical work from our lab and highlight how it fits a construal-based perspective of iconicity (Bellugi & Klima, 1976; Wilcox, 2004; Occhino et al., 2017; Winter et al., 2026). Much of the opposition that the concept of iconicity has received in linguistics stems from an over-emphasis of the universal nature of iconicity, and an under-appreciation of the extent to which it is based on construal, and hence variable between individuals and different communities.
I then turn to a central conceptual problem: the confusing, and often conflicting definitions of ‘arbitrariness’. Recent philosophical work (Planer & Kalkman, 2021; Gasparri et al., 2022) highlights that the label ‘arbitrary’ means different things in different contexts, such as arbitrariness as non-iconicity, arbitrariness as non-systematicity, or arbitrariness as conventionality. A closer look at this web of interrelated senses reveals that the banner notion of arbitrariness is not needed and, in fact, actively damaging as it leads to false dichotomies, such as the idea that conventions are somehow inimical to iconicity. Drawing on Keller’s (1998) sign theory and Flaksman’s (2017, 2020) notion of de-iconization, I will show that everything that is generally attributed to the principle of arbitrariness results from the interplay of conventions and regular processes of language change. I will conclude that in order to get a clear picture of the linguistic sign and the different evolutionary forces that act upon it, we need to abandon the notion of arbitrariness altogether.
More informations
Meeting details:- Date: 18 November 2026
- Time: 17:00
- Location: IAS (Wileńska 4 Street, Toruń), room B.1.9
- Admission: Free
Visegrad Fellowship Programe Open Call
The International Visegrad Fund has opened applications for the Visegrad Fellowship Programe, aimed at researchers from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine.
The applicant’s country of citizenship and permanent residence must be different from the host institution's country. Fellowships are awarded for 2 to 10 weeks and support research projects, participation in research activities, teaching lectures or seminars, as well as work with materials available in public archives and libraries.
Applications should be submitted online via the My Visegrad. The application should include an identity document, a PhD diploma or confirmation of enrolment in a PhD programme, an invitation letter from the host institution and a letter of recommendation. Applications are assessed based on the applicant’s academic qualifications, experience, project justification, and the rationale for selecting the host institution.
Key information:
- Application deadline: 30 November, 12:00
- Fellowship amount: EUR 500 per week, paid in two instalments (80% and 20%)
- Further information is available on the website
Mass Spectrometry – from theory to practice
Institute of Advanced Studies NCU would like to invite you to a scientific/technical seminar titled on mass spectrometry. The event will take place on December 1 and will provide an opportunity to discuss current trends, possibilities, and future directions in mass spectrometry techniques and their use in scientific research with experts.
During the seminar, participants will learn about the latest developments in low- and high-resolution mass spectrometry and their practical applications in modern analytics. Moreover, the invited guests will present the capabilities of advanced analytical systems, including the QTRAP 7500+, ZenoTOF 7600+ and ZenoTOF 8600.
The event is organised by the Decarbon3BIO research group in collaboration with Bioanalytic, a company focused on laboratory equipment and a partner of SCIEX.
Agenda
Details of the event:- Date: 1 December 2026
- Time: 11:00 - 13:45
- Location: IAS (Wileńska 1 St), room B.1.9
- Admission: Free