The Young Academy of Slovenia (Mlada akademija, MA) is a successor of the Slovenian Society of Young Researchers (DMRS), which was established in 1995 and has been for almost thirty dealing with helping doctoral students and early career scientists in their endeavours in the field of research.

In the last few years, they are also pointing their focus on the Mental Health of PhD and early-career scientists, since research consistently shows that they represent a very vulnerable group, compared to similar ages in other fields.

This year Mlada akademija held the third iteration of their annual event in collaboration with Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation and The Slovenian Press Agency (STA). It was titled Mental Health - With curiosity beyond limits and one of two main parts was a round table discussion with relevant stakeholders.

The guests of the round table were:

Prof. Dr Kristina Sepčić, a full professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biotechnics, University of Ljubljana, where she was awarded the 2019 Mentor of the Year Award.
Psychologist Dr Tomaž Vec, lecturer at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana, where he runs a psychosocial counselling centre for students, which was set up nine years ago due to the lack of access to psychological help in the country
Dr Irena Makivić, a sociologist, who as a young researcher worked as the Chair of Family Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and is now employed at the National Institute of Public Health, where she is involved in the preparation of the National Mental Health Programme MIRA.

Our Nik Rus was also invited to participate at the round table to provide insights into the state of PhD researchers with his current experience as a PhD student.

The recording of the round table is available on this link.