ETUDE’s first network-wide training was held online in Gather.Town from 4-8 October 2021. As most Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) had just started their projects, this was a great beginning of their ETUDE journey. During this week, the ESRs presented their projects to each other and their supervisors, in order to get a good impression of all the projects within ETUDE. The training week also included lectures on the history and current understandings of functional disorders (FD), and in depth lectures on the mechanisms, diagnosis, treatment and stigma of FD. These lectures were also attended with great interest by other researchers in the field. In addition, we had an extensive book discussion on a novel on FD they had to read in order to learn about the patient perspective. Other important topics we discussed were sex and gender in research, which was covered by a lecture and an online module on Sex and Gender in Health Research of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as well as workshops on open science practices and research ethics.

The week also included a transferable skills course on online science communication, knowledge we immediately applied in practice by writing several website texts. The week ended with a lecture and workshop on making podcasts to prepare for the series of podcasts that will be made throughout the course of ETUDE.

All in all, this first training week was a big success, despite the fact that there was no possibility to meet in person. The tone is set for the next, hopefully onsite, network-wide training.