Among the participants on board were doctoral students and postdocs from biosciences, medicine, chemistry, peace and conflict research, literature studies, sports sciences and psychology, as well as from Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology. While the boat was cruising gently along the banks of the Main river and the European Central Bank and Frankfurt's East Harbor came into view, the participants talked about doctoral activities such as their individual experiences with supervision. They also discussed the amount of time that remains for actual thesis writing, in addition to teaching and laboratory work. Answers and reactions were very varied, even with the disciplines, depending on the individual subject matter and the context of the doctorate. 

Opinions also differed on the question which campus of Goethe University and within the RMU alliance actually is the most beautiful - and even those from Goethe University among themselves couldn't reach an agreement on this. While enjoying coffee, cake and cool drinks, some of the participants engaged in an interdisciplinary discussion as to which sports could by considered to be more "right-wing" or "left-wing". At another table, doctoral students from biochemistry and medicine talked about joint theoretical principles and methods in cancer research. 

The river cruise, which lasted around 100 minutes and also provided bilingual information along the way, offered fantastic views on the Museumsufer, the historic cranes in the East Harbor and the spectatular Frankfurt skyline. On top of that, it also offered space for establishing new professional and personal contacts outside of the everyday scientific life - and, hopefully, provided participants with some motivation and momentum for their further research at the Rhine-Main Universities.