Key aspects of the graduate program
As an alternative to the classic individual doctorate, participation in a structured doctoral program within a grad program is possible. In a structured doctoral program, the doctoral candidates are integrated into a training program. Selected graduate students come together there, whose projects are often assigned to a common, interdisciplinary topic. An accompanying curriculum prepares them for their research tasks. As a rule, at least one semester off is mandatory; in some structured programs, doctoral students are granted a scholarship.
The structures in the programs provide for regular exchange with other doctoral researchers and frequent contact – both institutionalized and informal – with a supervisory team consisting of a supervisor and at least one mentor. The PhD students are supported in attending conferences and publishing the results of their research – thus establishing early contact with the “academic community”.
Programs funded by DFG
The DFG-funded RTG 2599 “FAIR – Fine-Tuners of the Adaptive Immune Response” brings together 16 teams from various institutes at the University Hospital Erlangen and FAU in an interdisciplinary research consortium. As part of GRK2599, a comprehensive research and training program has been established to specifically train young scientists and medical students in immunology. The consortium’s primary goal is to identify and characterize novel fine-tuners of the adaptive immune response and immunological memory. To achieve this, state-of-the-art methodologies are employed, including genome-wide transcriptome analyses, modern imaging techniques, CRISPR-mediated genome editing, and transgenic mouse models.
The RTG 2740 “Immunomicrotope: Microenvironmental, Metabolic and Microbial Signals Regulating Immune Cell-Pathogen Interactions” focuses on the hypothesis that anti-infectious immune responses and pathogen evasion are heavily shaped by the local tissue context, metabolic environment, and microenvironment (“immunomicrotope”). The structured training program provides doctoral candidates with interdisciplinary research skills and technical capabilities to analyze host-pathogen interactions across bacterial, fungal, protozoan, and helminthic infection models.
EBM aims to disclose the role of brain mechanics, to explore how mechanics interplays with processes during development, in health and disease, as well as during regeneration, and to engineer substitute and phantom materials. It integrates disciplines such as, e.g., experimental analyses, clinical studies, and bioengineering, all informed by advanced modelling and simulation. Consequently, the success of EBM hinges critically on establishing and exploiting interdisciplinary synergies between the EBM PLs, doctoral and postdoctoral researchers in its EBMqualify concept. The integrated Research Training Group (iRTG) of EBM targets this demanding interdisciplinary challenge by providing a structured mandatory qualification programme and ensuring quality management and control for the doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, thereby also nurturing their scientific independence and promoting their career development.
Other programs
The PhD program provides medical students with the opportunity to complete a doctoral dissertation in a challenging, collaborative field of research. Annually, 18 fellowships are available for medical doctoral students. Fellowships are awarded for a period of eight consecutive months during the research activity. In addition, participants complete set training modules in parallel with their studies.
The Interdisciplinary Center for Aging Research (ICA) operates a collective graduate program “gerontology” which provides structured lecturing and special doctoral workshops for graduate students in gerontology as well as in psychology, psychiatry, geriatrics, and sport sciences. Research report ICA
The IMPRS Physics of Light (IMPRS-PL) at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) is an international graduate program that educates and trains new generations of scientists at MSc and PhD levels since 2006. In collaboration with the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), MSc stipends and PhD positions are offered. The language of instruction and interaction of the structured graduate program is English. More information can be found here: https://www.mpl.mpg.de/imprs
It is the aim of the Emil Fischer Graduate Programme (efs-NeW) to provide young researchers pursuing their doctoral thesis in an interdisciplinary environment with key qualifications required for a successful career in drug target research and drug development. Main areas of interest are the identification and characterization of target proteins, signaling cascades, drugs and mechanisms of action as well as related bioanalytical techniques.