Prospective Candidates

During doctoral research and training at the Department of Biology, we offer you an integrative and international education. You will independently work on a research project in a current field of modern life sciences. In parallel, the Graduate School of Life Sciences offers you a wide range of workshops on scientific and translational skills to support the progress of your project and to prepare you for your professional career beyond the doctorate. Application is possible either through a local research group or via one of the structured doctoral programs.

There are two different ways to obtain a Dr. rer. nat. (the German equivalent of a Ph.D.) from our Department: You can work on your individual doctoral project in one of our research groups or in the framework of a structured doctoral program. The main differences between these two ways are listed below:

	research group	doctoral program
requirements	only formal eligibility criteria	additional criteria may apply
time of application	anytime	typically fixed deadlines
supervisor	any professor of the Department of Biology	only members of the doctoral program
duration	(3 to) 3.5 years	3 (to 3.5) years
course work	typically none	depending on study program
fellowships	typically none	typically available