Heiko Holz (STM) at this year's annual "Let's talk about service" conference in Antwerp

Heiko Holz, research associate and PhD candidate at the Department for Service and Technology Marketing, was selected to participate in the 2017 edition of the international “Let’s talk about Service” Conference (http://www.letstalkaboutservice.org/). This year’s edition was hosted by the University of Antwerp, Belgium (https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/). The two-day event provided an environment to foster collaborative exchange of experience and a chance for methodological as well as practical training to around 40 junior researchers in the field of service marketing. The focus of collaborative workshop session was on designing and presenting interesting research proposals under academic supervision based on actual problems given by company partners. Well-known researchers from the field of service marketing, namely Prof. Mike Brady (Florida State University, Editor: Journal of Service Research), Prof. Jay Kandampully (Ohio State University, Editor: Journal of Service Management) and Prof. Thorsten Gruber (Loughborough University at Leicestershire, UK) served as academic support in this context. A series of lectures and interactive sessions on the role of young researchers in academic service research and the opportunities and challenges they are facing was also a highly valuable part of the two-day experience. Besides the Professors already mentioned above, Prof. Irene Ng (University of Warwick) and Prof. Sertan Kadabayi (Fordham University) shared insights, comments and personal experience with the young academics in this context. The interplay of academic focus and practical schooling provided a very motivating and engaging environment full of new impressions and insights to the junior researchers ultimately offered an enriching experience for their future pathway in academics.