Applying for a doctoral programme

Would you, as a professor, like to develop a new structured doctoral degree programme together with your colleagues? Should it be a programme offered by your Department or School at a structured level with ideal support? Or are you planning to apply for financing for a research training group, for example from an external funding provider? The Graduate Centre (F4) is happy to help you in your projects, giving advice on topics such as encouraging new talent, supervising students or drawing up the curriculum. Templates for your application can be found in CRIS, the FAU research information system. The sooner you get in touch with us, the more individual support we can give you for your planned project. In the case of applications for external funding, the Graduate Centre can also assist you in preparing for the relevant evaluations. Over the years, we have gathered experience in DFG evaluations for research training groups or integrated research training groups with CRCs/TRRs and are happy to use this experience to help you. If you are applying for third party funding for your project, Referat F1 (Office of Third-party Funding and Related Legal Affairs) can give you support.

Criteria for a structured doctoral programme

Doctoral programmes that are set up at FAU must fulfil the following criteria, irrespective of funding:

• Clear distinction in terms of subject matter and topic of the programme as well as sufficient number of researchers taking part (‘critical mass’)
• Consideration of aspects relating to gender and diversity
• Concept for supervision with supervision agreement, teams of supervisors and regular status reports/feedback meetings
• Qualification concept with obligatory subject-related and interdisciplinary events for young researchers
  Regular exchange of ideas within the programme and with national and international specialist audiences
• Clearly-defined application process (principle of multiple assessors)
• Defined time period for completion of doctoral degree with defined options for extension
• Clearly-defined organisational structures and processes (governance)

You usually automatically fulfil these criteria if you apply for a doctoral programme with an external funding provider (e.g. research training groups from DFG).

Use of the event programme and event planning at the Graduate Centre for structured doctoral programmes

The Graduate Centre Event Programme can be integrated into your doctoral programme. The curriculum of a doctoral programme usually includes a number of seminars and workshops on interdisciplinary topics that can be selected (e.g. academic writing, designing poster presentations, project management, scientific communication) and for professional development in soft skills (e.g. small talk at conferences, time management, staff management). Doctoral candidates can take part in these courses and they can usually be accredited to the degree programme.

We would be happy to assist you with developing events that are tailored towards your programme. The sooner you get in touch with us, the more we can tailor what’s on offer to suit your individual needs so that you can include them in your application and in your programme.