Curriculum

Curriculum Overview

Our central aim is and will be to develop our PhD candidates into creative, responsible and self-confident researchers in the field of infection biology and immunology. The IMPRS-IDI follows a 3-core principle to achieve this:

The individual PhD candidate with their research project is at the central core of our efforts, embedded in the structure of the supervising PI’s research group. This provides the central practical experience and acquisition of the scientific background of the specific research field. It includes participation in laboratory meetings, journal clubs and the direct mentoring by the PI and other workers in the group.

We believe that our young researchers are motivated by their passion for their project, to delve deep into and contribute new knowledge to their respective topics, and their determination to succeed on the international job market after completion of their PhD with as many options to them as possible. And this requires a nurturing environment with supervision, mentoring and formal tools to assess progress (2nd core). The individual thesis advisory committees (TACs), the speaker and/or the coordinator, as well as peers in the school provide guidance, monitor the PhD candidates’ progress and offer support. This is summarized in the supervision agreement.

Each young researcher is unique and we try to balance our curriculum (3rd core) to the individual PhD candidate’s needs. As science constantly evolves, so does our curriculum to give you a contemporary education and respond to changing training needs. We encourage you to actively participate in the planning of the program with us. At the same time, we believe that every young researcher needs a certain set of skills and theoretical knowledge to succeed in their project and take full advantage of their potential during and after their PhD. To this end, our curriculum includes a mixture of mandatory and elective elements that we associate with four key areas of learning.

1) Scientific training (basic): This includes courses, lectures, seminars and meetings that all our researchers would benefit from. Mandatory element’s include for example good scientific practice training and the Student’s Day.

2) Scientific training (specific): We also offer courses that we believe certain PhD candidates would benefit from, such as expert courses in certain techniques or lecture series and seminars with specific topics.

3) Transferable skills and career development: We offer a range of transferable skill courses and career development options that you can freely choose from according to your needs.

4) Scientific Network and Communication: We believe that critical knowledge and know-how are more efficiently taught through cooperative work, discussion of projects between doctoral candidates, faculty and with international experts and the scientific community. We encourage local mentoring, peer-to-peer mentoring and exposure of our PhD candidates by presenting in seminars, conferences or through inviting speakers.

Our PhD candidates receive credit points according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) for the curricular events (explained in detail further below).

Curriculum plan

Mandatory elements are shown in dark green, grey denotes elective offers and dark grey offers from partners or external institutions.