Welcome!
In line with the process of restructuring doctoral research and training at the University of Münster the Department of Biology has founded the Graduate School of Life Sciences "GS-LS" for all its doctoral candidates. Our primary objective is to further improve the conditions under which all our doctoral candidates pursue their research projects and prepare for their professional careers. A young team of first class scientists and their internationally recognized research groups, close interdisciplinary interactions at the frontiers of science, state-of-the-art infrastructure in excellent high-tech laboratories, transparent structures for supervision and mentoring, individualized offers for scientific and translational skills, an international network of scientific collaborations with Universities, Research Centers and Industry throughout the world - these are just some of the highlights of GS-LS. The city of Münster - award winning, medium sized, green and young, with its centuries old traditions and modern infrastructure, bicycling capital of Germany situated in the heart of Europe - provides the ideal setting for doctoral studies and training with a difference.
The leitmotif of GS-LS is to make available to all doctoral candidates pursuing a Dr. rer. nat. (the German equivalent of a PhD in natural and life sciences) the offers and advantages of structured doctoral programs without limiting the scientific freedom of the individual doctoral candidates, their research groups, and their supervisors. The hallmark of GS-LS will be the inclusion of all doctoral candidates into thematically oriented teams which typically will be interdisciplinary in nature. These teams will organize their own regular seminar series, and they will make available to all team members the expertise and infrastructure of all the research groups involved. Concomitantly, the GS-LS Career Development Center will offer workshops and trainings for scientific and translational skills as asked for by the teams and individual doctoral candidates or their supervisors. Our aim is to support all doctoral candidates in their individual career paths during and beyond doctoral research and training, whether this will lead them into academia such as universities or research centers, into e.g. biotechnological, biomedical, pharmaceutical, or chemical industry, or elsewhere. We are proud of having successful alumni in a wide field of occupations, and we actively seek contact with them to support a strong network into the professional world to the benefit of our current doctoral candidates, their research projects, and their career options.