Local PhD Community Takes Flight in Kalundborg
Just before the summer holidays, Helix Lab’s Senior Scientific Consultant, Kresten Kromphardt, and Management Consultant, Nanna Blume, posed a question to local PhD students:
What do you need from a local PhD community?
The answer began to take shape at a kickoff gathering at Helix Lab where the four Helix Lab PhD students met with two other PhD students who also do their PhDs in collaboration with companies in the Kalundborg Industry.
The six students are doing their PhDs at Unibio, Novonesis, and Novo Nordisk and are employed at Aalborg University, DTU and KU respectively.
Over lunch, participants exchanged experiences from life as a PhD researcher. Later, they pitched their PhD projects, co-created ideas, expectations, and practical formats for future meetups, discussed common challenges, and explored potential collaborations. For Nanna Blume, the initiative is about more than research output, it’s about fostering belonging.
“A local PhD network makes it easier to share ideas across disciplines, find sparring partners, and support each other through the unique experience of doing a pHd in collaboration with industry. By bringing people together regularly, we can help ensure that PhD students in Kalundborg not only thrive academically, but also feel part of something bigger,” she says.
A Natural Expansion for Helix Lab
Students, researchers and specialists are a vital part of Kalundborg’s knowledge ecosystem, and adding a local community of PhD students will make this ecosystem stronger. The local PhD students are all working within the biotech and industry 4.0 sector, which also means, that they meet over common interests and challenges in the same research fields or across disciplines.
And when researchers with different backgrounds from both companies and universities meet, unexpected collaborations can emerge, Kresten Kromphardt believes.
“Helix Lab is in a perfect position to facilitate such a community, because we already act as a bridge between universities, companies, and researchers. We’ve built a strong Fellows Alumni community, and it’s natural for us to expand by supporting the development of this PhD community,” he explains.
Kresten Kromphardt hopes that quarterly meetings will establish a tradition, helping connections grow over time and delivering both scientific and personal benefits to participants.
Connecting Beyond the Capital
Tobias Overgaard, who is doing his PhD at Novo Nordisk and DTU, says that meeting the other PhD students was a refreshing change from the usual research scene.
“A meeting like this is an excellent opportunity to explore what happens outside the Copenhagen bubble. It’s a brilliant way to share experiences of doing a PhD within a company and to talk about the loneliness that can happen in the process. Meeting others in the same position as you definitely help reduce the sense of isolation,” he says.
Overgaard attended alongside fellow Novo Nordisk PhD Emil Rye Andersen and Helix Lab PhDs Isabell Raahauge Eriksen, Alejandro Morite, Gary Simethy, and Oliver Massaad.
Looking ahead, Helix Lab plans to expand the network with more members and scientific seminars. From 2027, they hope to launch a dedicated scientific conference, cementing Kalundborg’s position as a place where PhD students can thrive both academically and socially.