Saarland University has already for some time been focusing on supporting and enhancing doctoral studies. Located at the interface between teaching and research, doctoral studies are one of the University's central activities. However, since the conditions and working environments for doctoral students vary widely between the different faculties and disciplines, a general systemization is not feasible.

In an effort to find a more differentiated means of meeting its institutional responsibilities to develop and promote doctoral studies, Saarland University has set up the GradUS initiative - a quality assurance and networking scheme for doctoral students. By introducing the GradUS scheme, the University has accommodated the request of doctoral students to pursue doctoral research within a clearly defined academic and procedural framework. It is also responding to the increased significance attached to doctoral degrees as a key preparatory stage for research-based activities and careers not only in academic institutions, but also in the wider labour market, the economy and in society.

Unlike disciplinary graduate research training programmes, which provide education and support for small groups of doctoral students working in relatively narrow fields, the GradUS scheme aims to improve the education, training and support for young academics in a much broader sense. The scheme will offer a multistage programme that is open to all doctoral students at the University and that enables students to acquire at their own pace those supplementary skills and qualifications that are of most use for their future careers. The GradUS programme incorporates the results of a number of pilot projects that have been conducted at Saarland University over the last few years with the aim to develop and promote doctoral studies. A key principle of the GradUS scheme is to be open and responsive to the variety of doctoral research cultures found in the different faculties and institutes, while at the same time ensuring that useful ideas and approaches are available interdisciplinarily.

Designed in this way, the GradUS scheme enables the gradual development of a new, more interdisciplinary and more internationally oriented approach to doctoral studies at Saarland University, thus making the University more attractive to prospective doctoral students from Germany and overseas.

Graduiertenprogramm der Universität des Saarlandes (GradUS), Präsidialbüro, Geb. A2 3

Homepage:
www.uni-saarland.de/gradus

E-Mail:
gradus(at)uni-saarland.de

Telefon:
0681/302-58095

Team: siehe Kontakt