Concept of Qualification
The qualification concept of the Research Training Group strongly relies on a close personal connection within the collegiate community. The prerequisite for this is the formation of graduate cohorts, which are usually conducted together to graduate within six study semesters. Due to the largely simultaneous start, many events and program items are jointly visited and designed by the doctoral students, which will greatly promote the cohesion and interaction within the Research Training Group.
In order to facilitate a smooth start of the PhD program, a group of about 10 PhD students already working on their PhD projects for a maximum of 1.5 years represent the 0th cohort of the Research Training Group. These PhD students, with their topics closely related to the GrK topics, are already familiar with the internal university communication processes and they will take over the professional and organizational "peer mentoring" of the first cohort. Renewing these positions with graduate students will also facilitate a smooth transition to the next DFG-funded doctoral generation.
Study Program
The specific study program of the Research Training Group is based on the three pillars of individual work support, scientific networking, and interdisciplinary qualification. As shown in the following table, this ensures a gradual transition from initially intensive supervision at the beginning of the program to a largely independent qualification towards the end of the three-year doctoral period.
tabteaser
The program items for individual supervision are tailored directly to the needs of individual doctoral candidates and coordinated in internal discussions with the supervision team.
With regard to individual supervision, each doctoral student who joins the Research Training Group first develops an individual study program together with the respective supervision team (see below).
This includes a selection of working group internships, through which the doctoral candidates are integrated into the topic of the Research Training Group program in the first semester. Furthermore, the study program takes into account the different educational backgrounds of the doctoral candidates through a selection of courses from the curricula of the Master's programs and newly developed lectures, which have to be taken by the doctoral students. Individual support also includes regular scientific status discussions, which take place directly after the regular seminar lectures and serve effective self- and quality control as well as focusing on strategic objectives.
The networking program items, such as seminars, workshops, and conferences, are the same for all PhD student and serve to promote cooperation and interdisciplinary exchange within the Research Training Group. In addition, the foundations for scientific exchange with the national and international scientific community are laid here.
The fellows present their results twice a year in seminar lectures. All members of the other working groups are invited to these seminar lectures in order to ensure an intensive exchange between the groups of the Research Training Group.
In the first and third year of the study program, several-day workshops will take place outside of Hamburg. These graduate workshops will be designed primarily by the doctoral students in order to promote scientific interaction.
In the second year of the study program, a graduate conference will take place, which will make a major contribution to integration into the national and international scientific network.
The program points for further qualification can be individually designed by the PhD candidates and serve to improve the competitiveness on the job market as well as for further scientific networking.
The Research Training Group is organizationally integrated into the MIN Graduate School MINGS (www.min.uni-hamburg.de/en/min-graduiertenschule.html) of the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics, and Natural Sciences, which in turn is under the umbrella of the Hamburg Research Academy (HRA) (https://www.hra-hamburg.de/en.html). As a result, the PhD students have access to a comprehensive catalog of offers for the acquisition of interdisciplinary key competences (e.g. employee leadership, efficient teamwork, moderation, university didactic offers to promote teaching skills).
Furthermore, there are many opportunities to attend regular scientific lectures and colloquia at the University of Hamburg and in the direct scientific environment such as DESY, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Helmholtz Center Geesthacht (HZG), Max Planck Institute for Structure and Design Dynamics of matter (MPSD), etc.
In addition to the Research Training Group conference, fellows have the opportunity to participate in at least one other international scientific conference.