Overview

Our Research Training provides education, support and opportunities to Master and Ph.D. students at the early stages of their professional careers. In particular, it serves to prepare students for performing successful research in the general directions of CRC 1277. The corresponding measures take place within the Integrated Research Training Group (IRTG).

A guiding theme of the IRTG derives from our conviction that young scientists should from early on be trusted with a healthy amount of independence. On the level of resources, this implies a students’ budget for traveling, organizing their own workshops and inviting guest speakers leading in their field.

More important, however, the students’ independence implies making own decisions on their scientific research where appropriate, e.g. in order to establish a sense of responsibility, even though a risk of failure may exist. To strengthen the decision making competences, the IRTG represents an environment, where learning and research can be an experience of cooperation and excitement, also concerning common successes. To this end, networking amongst all graduate students is encouraged, but also a direct communication style everywhere including the organization of daily lab tasks. Incidentally, it thus also helps to overcome boundaries of work groups, topics and scientific approaches.

Concerning education, special lectures aimed at a deeper understanding of various scientific topics of interest to our CRC 1277 will be offered. These lectures will close the gap between standard lectures and the scientific talks and publications in the various research fields of CRC 1277.