2025 IMPRS-IS Boot Camp: Bringing Our Doctoral Community Together The IMPRS-IS Boot Camp is a one-of-a-kind training program for doctoral researchers, combining professional development, networking, and hands-on learning. This interdisciplinary event brings together participants from MPI-IS, University of Stuttgart, and University of Tübingen, fostering collaboration across sites and research areas. The 2025 Boot Camp ran Wednesday, September 24 – Friday, September 26, featuring talks, debates, tutorials, poster sessions, and open houses that made it a truly immersive experience. First Ever IMPRS-IS Debate Which publication venues best serve groundbreaking research? The Boot Camp’s first-ever debate brought this question to the stage. Paola Forte and Maksym Andriushchenko argued for prioritizing top conferences, while Max Dax and Michael Muehlebach emphasized the continued importance of journals. Moderated by Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, the session was full of sharp insights, spirited discussion, and practical takeaways for all participants. Keynote Highlights Moritz Hardt (MPI-IS) – “How Benchmarking Broke in the LLM Era and What to Salvage” Hardt explored the challenges of benchmarking large AI models, explaining how differing preparation levels can distort rankings. He introduced net-of-effort evaluation, a method that ensures fair comparisons and more reliable conclusions about model performance, helping researchers interpret emergent abilities in AI more accurately. Josie Hughes (EPFL) – “Bioinspired Robots: Building Embodied Intelligence” Hughes presented bioinspired approaches for designing robots that interact robustly with their environment. By combining innovative materials, structure, and sensory-motor control, her work shows how embodied intelligence can enable new robotic capabilities, with applications in sustainability and agriculture. Other Highlights Open Houses: 55 interactive stations in Tübingen and Stuttgart Poster Presentations: 70+ scholarly posters Interactive Tutorials: 15 hands-on sessions Community Building: Networking sessions, student representative elections, and awards Awards & Recognition Poster Awards: Best Wednesday Poster: Annalena Kofler Best Thursday Poster: Onno Eberhard Honorable Mentions: Gili Ron, Klaus-Rudolf Kladny, Nadine Badie Open House Awards: Tübingen: Ghadeer Elmkaiel Stuttgart: Andrew Schultz & Fatemeh Farsijani, Barbara Romanelli Student Representatives Our new student representatives, Jens Beißwenger, Kira Koch, Mahmut Yorulmaz, and Serli Kopar, will represent the four sites of the doctoral program and soon select an overall representative. As you can see, the 2025 boot camp was a great time, and we're already looking ahead to next year! The 2026 Boot Camp will be off-site at the AllgäuStern Hotel, Sonthofen, September 23–25, 2026. IMPRS-IS rotates annually between onsite and offsite locations.