In the summer of 2020, the Department of Biology adopted new doctoral regulations that provide for a structured doctoral programme for all its doctoral students, with the aim, among other things, of enabling a swift doctorate with high scientific standards within three to four years. In addition to seven thematically specialised graduate schools, the department has since offered the open-topic structured doctoral programme BioSciences, which combines a thematically individually oriented doctorate with the advantages of structured doctoral studies.
What all these doctoral programmes have in common is that they include additional elements of supervision and interdisciplinary qualification that go beyond the classic individual doctorate. The doctoral candidates conclude a doctoral agreement with their doctoral supervisor at an early stage. In addition, they benefit from the supervision of two other professors from the very beginning, who are members of their doctoral committee and thus decisively broaden their scientific horizons. As doctoral candidates, they are integrated into a clearly defined structure of individual supervision, regular reviews of the progress already made and various qualification offers, without this restricting the freedom of their own research or reducing their responsibility for their own doctoral project. All this is intended to help in the planning and speedy completion of one's own doctoral project as well as in the development of individual career ideas.
The SP BioSciences offers a structured doctoral programme to all doctoral students, regardless of the topic of their doctoral project. All doctoral researchers who do not wish to be a member of one of the topic-specific programmes are automatically members of this programme. The SP BioSciences has developed a comprehensive workshop programme, which is being successively expanded, and which offers doctoral researchers topics from three areas: Academic and Societal Impact Training, Management Training and Career Development Training.
As in all other programmes, a workshop on Good Scientific Practice is compulsory, which doctoral researchers find both important and enriching. Courses on statistics and the use of statistics programmes or on scientific writing, some of which are offered together with other programmes, are also very popular, as they contribute directly to the progress of the doctoral project. Particularly popular and successful are offers from the SP BioSciences such as the White and Blue Belt Training, which are also in high demand by doctoral students from other programmes. In addition, the doctoral candidates of the SP BioSciences benefit from a professional and individual advisory and coaching service.
Thus, the SP BioSciences has meanwhile developed into the largest doctoral programme in the department. The networking of doctoral researchers and the exchange of information on the content, methods and strategies of their research projects across the broad range of topics are explicitly desired and supported by the programme. Together, the doctoral researchers are already planning new, larger and smaller live events that will further support collegial exchange as soon as the pandemic situation allows it again. The programme thrives on the commitment of its members.