Curriculum
The program consists of the doctoral thesis and an additional curriculum. The thesis will be conducted under the guidance of the direct supervisor and a Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC, see below). The individually tailored curriculum is completed by
- a joint introductory week for all newcomers,
- transferable and specific research skill courses throughout the year,
- two student retreats,
- in-house (institute and departmental) seminars,
- international (and national) conference participation,
- as well as outreach activities.
Cancellation policy:
Once you have registered for a course provided by the IMPRS on a sign-up list, you should be considerate and participate. If you are unable to attend, you should inform the coordinator with at least 48hours notice. This is so that we can fill your slot with another person that can benefit from attending. For those that are systematically missing in courses that they have signed up for will be black-listed from future participation.
Each year, the IMPRS-QBEE will organise an introduction week for its latest cohort in-take. The welcome week serves as an opportunity to strengthen the ties between the participatns as the newcomers to the program, while also providing initial on-boarding information of the MPI-AB institute, the University of Konstanz, and German policies that especially our international students will be lacking.
This year’s introduction week will take place from 29. Sep - 2. Oct 2025.
A detailed program will be sent out to each participant in due time.
An array of courses and workshops will be offered throughout the year. Please contact the coordinator if there is a particular course of interest that has yet to be offered.
Transferable skills, also known as soft-skills, are abilities that one may develop when pursuing a doctoral degree and can be transferred to future careers, whether in academia or the industry. Many of these courses are taught by experienced external trainers who, in addition to their PhD or Post-doctoral skills, bring their experiences from the non-academic route. In doing so they provide a unique skill-set and contribute to the development of our doctoral students. Specific research skills are more tailored to your specific research and may be taught in lab courses, FELASA, statistic courses, summer schools, Animove, first-aid courses, etc.
For 2025, we organised the following courses and workshops:
-
Data Analysis with R (Rick Scavetta, online)
1st Group Session: Tuesday 25 March, 09.30 – 11.30
2nd Group Session: Tuesday 01 April, 09.30 – 11.30
Study Session: Thursday 03 April, 14.30 – 16.30
3rd Group Session (optional): Friday 04 April, 14.30 – 16.30
1:1 Mentoring Session: Tuesday 08 April 2024, 09.00 – 13.00 (+ 13:00 – 17:30) -
Scientific Writing (Brian Cusack)
Thu, 3rd July – Fri, 4th July 2025 -
Peer Review (Brian Cusack)
Mon, 7th July – Tue, 8th July 2025 -
Data Visualization with R (Rick Scavetta, online)
1st Group Session: Tuesday 11 November, 09.30 – 11.30
2nd Group Session: Tuesday 18 November, 09.30 – 11.30
Study Session: Tuesday 25 November, 14.30 – 16.30
1:1 Mentoring Session: Thursday 27 November, 09.00 – 13.00 (+ 13:00 – 17:30)
IMPRS doctoral students should participate twice in a ~3-days retreat during their doctorate and they should support the organisation of at least one.
During the retreats all doctoral students are asked to present their work in the form of a poster or talk. This allows them to share their research with fellows in a relaxed environment without the pressures to perform and impress, as can be the case in work conference. The exchange of current projects within the IMPRS program hopefully leads to learning opportunities, feedback from same level colleagues, and to fututre collaborations.
Besides the presentations, workshops, or courses, the retreat includes social networking activities such as hiking, yoga, cooking, or archery depending on the location of choice and what is available onsite.These are meant to provide a platform to exchange experiences of their research as well as their personal challenges and how they have managed to overcome these, in hope to provide guidedance between each other.
This year’s IMPRS retreat will take place from 14. - 16. May 2025.
A detailed program will be sent out to each participant in due time.
Outreach is an important component of communicating and enhancing the visibility and comprehension of your own scientific results, both to your fellow scientists as well as to public in general. Why is this so important? All research funding in Germany are from public sources, be it from the MPI-AB (federal funding), University of Konstanz (state funding), or even if you are a scholarship holder this is generally still the case (e.g. DAAD). Therefore, it has never been more important to share your/our research be it with Open Source, pre-print, writing a news article, teaching a school class full of next generation pupils, or attending a research conference. In this way, you are giving back to the community that is funding you. Showing them your results makes it clear why it is important to financial provide these funds for you and the future generation likewise.
Teaching younger students, school children, and even kindergarteners is also part of outreach and an opportunity to have a positive effect on what and how much is shared with the little ones. Don’t let the fact that you might not be fluent in German deter you from taking action. Perhaps the teacher would be willing to support you in translating or you could ask a German speaking colleague to join. MaxCine can help you find your target audience.
Please use the IMPRS-QBEE logos provided under links and downloads, mention IMPRS-QBEE in affiliations, and in the case where funding was provided by the IMPRS-QBEE, this should be recognised in the acknowledgements of any form of publication and poster presentations.
During the entire doctorate, it is expected that each doctoral student attends and actively participates in their research group meetings and seminars as well as in the departmental lectures offered by their affiliations and of course as guests in each others, as deemed necessary by the doctoral student and TAC members.