Qualification Program

The strong interdisciplinary qualification program of the RTG aims at individually tailored education for each doctoral candidate and postdoc. The supportive learning environment provided encourages ambitious, self-motivated, dedicated, and honest scientific work, guided by critical, independent thinking. The qualification program includes online-learning platforms and reaches out to international experts for specialized scientific support. Online-provided study programs available at the University of Kassel will facilitate filling gaps in basics of biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and system theory, while the RTG offers doctoral candidates the individual choice of diverse specializations. Thus, doctoral candidates may either work primarily in the lab of an experimental PI, addressing multiscale timing in one of several biological model organisms, and/or focus on developing innovative experimental techniques. Alternatively, they may focus on data analysis, developing models of biological clocks based on experimental data, and deriving clock properties based on multi-scale models, thus becoming a specialist in theoretical sciences. In all cases, candidates will be educated in experimental as well as theoretic techniques, with supervision by one main mentor and at least one additional PI from a different discipline. In such a way, our qualification program will enable doctoral candidates to specialize into one aspect of our central research idea while being strongly rooted in the basics of theory and experimental practice. Thus, our excellently trained candidates will be prepared for careers in science, medicine, and industry alike.