The 5th PhD School of the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe (AGILE) was held at the Chair of Geoinformatics, Department of Geography, the University of Tartu, Estonia.16 PhD students attended from universities across Europe worked on the main themes of geo-visualisation, reproducibility and science communication. The students were challenged to question preconceived ideas, own perceptions and habits in regards to the process of conducting and communicating scientific research. In this editorial we provide a few key takeaways for the main themes and sketch the process of reproducible proceedings.