The Training

VoCS Winter School: the starting point of doctoral training

Current Methods in Voice Communication Sciences
9–12 February 2026 · Herzberg Seminar House & Conference Center (Switzerland)
Host institution: University of Zurich

The VoCS Winter School is the flagship entry point to the consortium’s doctoral programme. Over four intensive days, VoCS doctoral candidates begin their training with an immersive introduction to how human identity is encoded, perceived, and synthesized through the voice. The curriculum spans behavioural, cognitive, and computational approaches and combines lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on sessions. A complementary set of transversal-skills modules strengthens ethical, legal, and methodological practice in contemporary research.

What participants gain

  • A shared foundation in voice acoustics, perception study design, speaker recognition, and audio-deepfake methods.
  • Practical experience with tools and workflows used across labs and industry partners.
  • A professional network linking doctoral candidates, principal investigators, and invited experts across the VoCS consortium.

Scientific modules — topics & speakers

  • Voice Acoustics — Volker Dellwo, Elisa Pellegrino, Alessandro De Luca (University of Zurich); Uwe Reichel (Audeering)
  • Voice Perception: Study Design — Attila Andics (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Automatic Speaker Recognition — Shrikanth Madikeri Raghunathan (University of Zurich)
  • Audio Deepfake: Production & Detection — Anil Alexander, Finnian Kelly (Oxford Wave Research)

Transversal-skills modules

  • Research Integrity & Ethics — Khiet P. Truong (University of Twente); Attila Andics (Eötvös Loránd University)
  • Privacy & Personal Data, Open Access, FAIR Data — Melanie Röthlisberger (University of Zurich)
  • Intellectual Property: Generation & Protection — Manuel Segovia Martinez (Origenes)

Program

Organisers & contact

  • Organisers: Elisa Pellegrino and Volker Dellwo
  • Information & quieries: Elisa Pellegrino — elisa.pellegrino@uzh.ch

VoCS Main Network-Wide Training Events, Conferences and Contribution of Beneficiaries

1 Day Meeting:Overview; Recruitment Process; Personalized Career Development Plan, Financial Management, Dissemination and Exploitation Strategy; Training on supervision for supervisors (common and practices- focus on juniors including mentoring).

Day 1:Introduction to the VoCS Doctoral Network; Career Development Plan (P. Belin, AMU). Team Building in the snow (DCs) Day 2: (STK) Fundaments of Vocal Acoustics in humans and animals (A. Andics, ELTE; S. Townsend, V. Dellwo, E. Pellegrino, UZH) (TS) Ethics of Human and Animal research, Integrity, Sustainability (K. Truong, U Twente; A. Andics, U., ELTE, tbc/ S. Townsend, M. Röthlisberger, UZH). Day 3: (STK) Feature extraction and acoustic modelling (V. Dellwo, A. De Luca, UZH); OpenSmile for Vocal Biomarker Extraction (U. Reichel, AUD). (TS): Open access and FAIR data principles (M. Röthlisberger, UZH). Day 4: (STK) Introduction to machine learning and automatic voice processing (Huw Swanborough, UZH; F. Kelly, OWR); (TS): Privacy and personal data (GDPR) (M. Röthlisberger, UZH). Day 5: (no DCs) Review / Consortium/EAB meetings.

Day 1: (STK) Specific disorders in voice perception and production (O. Guntinas-Lichuis, FSU); Team building: Autumn hike around Jena; BBQ Reception coinciding with launch of Center for Intervention and Research on adaptive and maladaptive brain Circuits underlying mental health (https://c-i-r-c.de/). Day 2: (STK) Voice and Health I. The voice and depression/suicidality (C. Dobel, FSUJ), Voice and autism (A. Kowallik, FSUJ), Voice and Parkinson´s disease (S. Kotz, UM); (TS) Diversity in scientific research: Ethnicity, Gender, Socio-economic awareness, Harassment (S Lipinski, Berlin; A. Führer, Halle). Day 3:(STK)Voice and health II. Respiratory disease (A. Batliner, UAU), Pathological voices and hearing loss (M. Huber, Salzburg), Perceptual voice trainings (S. Schweinberger, FSUJ). (TS) State-of-the-art in participatory research (H. Kreysa, FSUJ; C. Anderson, London; P. Mitchell, Bradford; S. Lipinski, Berlin). Day 4: (TS) Mental health in research (Graduate academy and Mental health First Aid Team, Jena); (STK) Voice analysis and modification (C. Nussbaum, FSUJ; P. Belin, AMU). Day 5: (no DCs) Review meeting / Consortium/EAB meeting. 

Day 1: (TS) Workshop: personal profiling, feedback management and communication training (DCs, HR Business Partner Rikke Gundborg, OTIERH); Team Building: Murder mystery. Day 2: (TS) Recruitment seen from the corporate side: How to search for jobs, what is important to recruiters, and how to write cover letters/CV (J. Schacht, H. Jensen, OTIERH). (STK) Audio Signal Processing for speech processing and speech enhancement (T. Alstrøm, Tech Uni Denmark; P. Messiano, L. Bramsløw, N. Pontoppidan, OTIERH). Day 3:(STK) Machine Learning for Signal Processing (T. Alstrøm, Tech Uni Denmark). (TS) Real-world assessment of hearing and communication performance (S. Aliakbary-Hosseinabadi, J. H. Christensen, D. Wendt, OTIERH). Day 4:(TS) Project and stakeholder training workshop for collaborating within and across teams and functions (HR Business Partner R. Gundborg, H. Innes-Brown OTIERH); Poster presentation by DCs. Day 5:(no DCs) Review meeting / Consortium meeting.

Day 1:(STK) Basics of functional neuroanatomy (P. Belin, T. Chaminade, O Coulon, AMU); Team building: Hike in the Calanques and Paintball competition. Day 2: (STK) Speaker ID modelling in neural audio generation (Y. Jamagushi, NII); (TS) Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Management of IP, Patent Technology Transfer (N. Pontoppidan OTIERH). Day 3: (STK) Brain and Voice: Cerebral bases of voice processing in humans and other animals (P. Belin, AMU; A. Andics, ELTE; S. Frühholz, UiO); Forensic speech science vs speech technology (L. Tavi, NBI); Automatic Speaker Recognition; and benchmarking/evaluation of Voice Deepfake detectors (T. Kinnunen, UEF); (TS) The Art of Grantsmanship (M.H Grosbras, P; Belin, AMU).  Day 4:(TS) Voice Tech Entrepreneurship (C. Teissedre, ODIA); (STK) Presentation of the Institute of Language, Communication and the Brain (P. Blache; A; M. Montant; A. Rey; AMU). Presentations by DCs. 3-min teaser session by DCs, and Poster Reception (DCs and external).  Day 5: (no DCs) Review meeting / Consortium/EAB meeting.

Day 1:Day 1: (STK) Wildpark visit focused on vocal communication (A. Andics, ELTE); Team building: Escape rooms.  Day 2: (STK) Drivers of signal evolution, function and emergence of acoustic communication across species (N. Mathevon U Lyon, K. Pisanski UJM); (TS): Communicating scientific results with lay audience, stakeholders, and the press (posters, oral presentations); Media Training (E. Rodero UPF, E. Kubinyi ELTE).  Day 3: (STK) Bioacoustics: vocal information encoding in mammals (D. Reby UJM, T. Faragó ELTE); (TS) Creating short video abstracts for scientific publications (A. D. Molnár, M. Jurkovics, Naturefilm). Day 4: (STK) Comparative neuroethology: imaging mammalian voice processing mechanisms (P. Belin AMU, S. Frühholz UiO, A. Andics ELTE); (TS) Scientific blogs and social networks, publication accessibility (S. Bőhm, L. R. Zsiros, ELTE). Day 5: (no DCs) Review meeting / Consortium meeting.

Côte d’Azur. Day 2: (TS) Entrepreneurship training (L. Merlo, BPI France; S. Rouget, Foundation Sophia Antipolis; M. Segovia, OM; M. Clerc, Inria). Day 3: (TSK) Distinguished collaborators of OM (W. Nogueira, U Hospital of Hannover; E. Lopez-Poveda, U Salamanca; T. Goehring, U Cambridge; M. Fetcher, U Southampton); (TS) Adapt your elevated pitch for industry or academia I. Presentations by all DCs (half to academic, half to industrial panels). Day 4: (TS) Adapt your elevated pitch for industry or academia II. Concluding Round Table with EAB. VoCS Concluding Party. Day 5: (no DCs) Review meeting / Consortium / EAB meeting.