The aim of the Networks, Ph.D. Life And ComplExity, or simply NetPLACE, is to provide a friendly and cosy place for graduate and postgraduate students and early-career researchers from all over the world to interact, to present new/interesting developments from their areas of interest in the complex systems and networks field, as well as their difficulties during the PhD journey and more. 

To achieve these goals we organize multiple activities to engage with our community. Across the year, we organise online informal seminars every two weeks, where we can have exciting discussions on much more than just research. Differently from usual seminars, our speakers are asked to talk about the difficulties encountered in their academic path beyond their specific research questions, so as to help and prepare everyone in the audience in these peculiar situations. To favour this exchange of ideas, in the second half of each seminar we will discuss together one or more difficulties that PhD students may confront, trying to provide some plausible solutions. 

We also organize other in-person events where the NetPLACE community can come together to meet with each other and strengthen our bonds. We have already organized activities at various international conferences, such as in NetSci and NetSciX. Here we want to bring the discussions we have in our seminars to a broader level, giving the chance to discuss issues in our field with senior researchers in series of talks and panel discussions, trying to pass on suggestions about navigating the academic life to the new generations of researchers,.

All our events are informal and questions from the audience are encouraged at all times. NetPLACE activities are organized by early-career researchers, and are intended for students and early-career researchers in the broad area of networks and complexity. 

Want to know more about NetPLACE? Visit our About page!