First conference, no paper — and that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

This week, our Ph.D. student Carlo Schafflik is attending FPL 2026 in Ghent, the 36th “International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications,” hosted by Ghent University from September 7 to 11.

He’s there without presenting his own work—and that’s our approach: Every doctoral student in our department attends FPL during their first year, one of the leading international conferences in the fields of FPGAs and reconfigurable hardware. Not as a reward for a finished result, but as a starting point.

After all, nothing conveys the current state of research as well as a few days spent among the people who are driving it forward: listening, asking questions, making connections, and developing a sense of one’s own standing.

Carlo’s plan is simple: soak it all in this year—and be on the program himself next year.

Have fun and enjoy great conversations in Ghent, Carlo!