Excellent trainings for doctoral researchers!

The partner institutions of Berlin University Alliance have teamed up to organize their Graduate Studies Support Program, a broad portfolio of trainings, retreats, conferences and other events. The program is open to doctoral researchers from all subjects, as long as they are affiliated to Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, or Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. It is free of charge.

All offers at a glance: https://www.berlin-university-alliance.de/en/commitments/promoting-talent/projekte/graduate-studies-support-program/index.html 

Doctorate course: The doctoral course is not only aimed at doctoral students who are at the beginning of a doctorate or are looking for a topic for their dissertation or term paper. Advanced doctoral candidates can also structure their project once again and receive advice on how to write their thesis.

Doing a doctorate: yes or no? The digital interdisciplinary intensive workshop is aimed at Master's students and graduates interested in doing a doctorate who would like to do so in the future or are in the decision-making phase.

Introductory events for new PhD students: In cooperation with the faculties, the Center for Junior Scholars at Technische Universität Berlin organizes annual introductory events for new doctoral candidates (and postdocs). In addition to networking, formal questions about doctoral registration are answered and the most important contacts are introduced, from doctoral offices and faculty service centers to doctoral advisors and representatives on academic committees.

Kick Off Your Doctorate: As a face-to-face event for doctoral students starting their doctorate in Berlin, the Berlin University Alliance offers a two-day retreat. Accompanied by experienced trainers, a selection of key tools will be tested in exercises and opportunities will be identified to explore these in greater depth across institutions in further follow-up workshops. Group-building activities form the core of the event, making the kick-off a valuable networking event.

Starting your procect with success: Project management for doctoral researchers: Participants will explore project planning and how to break down the enormous task of a PhD project into manageable parts. In interactive activities with colleagues, they will discover how to use project management strategies to achieve goals while maintaining motivation and a healthy work-life balance.

The Dahlem Research School Podcast: Navigating the Doctorate: The Dahlem Research School podcast for prospective and current doctoral researchers was created to help support individuals who are considering a doctorate or who are already working on a doctorate. Across various seasons of the podcast, you’ll hear from former and current researchers talking about their experiences with the doctorate and in their transition to the job market after completing their doctorate as well as from various experts at the Freie Universität and beyond.

Freie Universität Berlin - Dahlem Research School: Dahlem Research School (DRS) is the central institution for young researchers at Freie Universität Berlin. It coordinates a broad range of doctoral programs, advises on all issues related to structured and individual doctoral studies, and offers an inspiring qualification program.

Humbolt-Universität zu Berlin - Humboldt Graduate School: The Humboldt Graduate School is the central institution for the strategic promotion of scientists and scholars in the early career phase at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Technische Universität Berlin - Center for Junior Scholars: The Center for Junior Scholars acts as a kind of pilot for all questions concerning young scientists from the doctoral and postdoc phases to junior professorships or junior research group leadership.

Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin - Doctoral College: The Doctoral College of Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin offers students and doctoral candidates of Charité an extensive and free range of student tutorials on basic skills of scientific work.

Berlin University Alliance - Graduate Studies Support Program: The Alliance of Excellence offers a comprehensive qualification program reflecting the different phases of a doctorate. The offerings are free of charge and open to all BUA doctoral students.

Good Scientific Practice - Ethical Challenges and Strategies: The aim of the workshop is to help the participants become more sensitive regarding the ethical problems of their own research. Thereby, they will be enabled to identify specific problematic fields within their work and to analyse them. For that, they learn about the basics of good scientific practice and apply them to their own cases. Finally, the participants work on strategies to deal with their discussed cases.

Grant Application Writing: The aim of this course is to familiarize participants with the strategies for designing and writing successful grant/fellowship applications to various funding bodies. It consists of lecture-style sequences with active participation by the audience dealing with extracting the nature of a successful project from official call documents, developing a new idea for a research project into a first work plan, visualising the structure of the project, matching the project to what the reviewers will expect, formulation of objectives, innovative aspects and impact, and budget calculation. Additional information about funding programmes, reviewing processes and funding of academic career will deepen the insights in research project design and writing of grant proposals.

How to give a talk: In this interactive workshop, participants practice presenting in a small group. In addition, this course offers the opportunity for interactive reflection and peer exchange. The language of instruction and presentation is English.

Research Integrity: The training aims to foster the internalization of the principles of European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and strives to facilitate the cultivation of scientific virtues among researchers. The program consists of an introduction to the concepts of research integrity, moral conflicts and dilemmas, values and norms, and is enhanced by discussions and interactive exercises.

Research Integrity: Probands. In this workshop, participants will have a closer look on research with probands. What ethical issues arise when researchers work with humans? How can those issues be solved? So, the session aims to help participants dealing with probands in a responsible way. Besides some basic information on the topic, participants will mainly focus on cases. Participants are invited to bring their own cases which will be discussed confidentially using the method of collegial consultation.

Statistics with SPSS: Sooner or later, (almost) every doctoral thesis involves statistics. In the course, participants review the most important statistical basics as well as the execution and interpretation of the most important statistical tests in SPSS.

Career Day: The Career Day is an annual event organized by the Berlin University Alliance. It is primarily designed for doctoral candidates in Berlin who are looking to expand their horizons and learn about the various career options available to them. It is an excellent opportunity for doctoral candidates in Berlin to explore future perspectives and meet exciting guests. The Career Day will provide an opportunity to meet and speak directly with professionals from various industries and sectors. Participants will be able to attend round table discussions and world cafés, as well as meet with professionals who can provide valuable insights and advice on their future prospects.

How to write a paper: In this tutorial, participants will learn how best to write a paper, what things are important to keep in mind, and how to stay as motivated as possible.

Optimize your writing productivity: The course teaches techniques that make it possible to write efficiently and with ease. Participants learn to dissolve writing blocks. They develop individual action plans to sustainably improve self-management and writing productivity.

Oral Defense Workshop for Doctoral Students: In their oral defence, doctoral candidates must give a presentation in which they explain the central points of their research project. This is followed by a discussion with the members of the examination committee. The aim of the course is to optimally prepare participants for this situation.

Scientific Research and Writing with AI: AI tools for research and writing are currently the subject of controversial debate. The developments are rapid and confusing. In addition to versatile basic tools such as ChatGPT 4o, there are now a number of AI applications that have been developed specifically for the scientific field. These include helpful tools for literature research and evaluation, for supporting feedback processes and for revising and fine-tuning texts.The workshop approaches the topic from different angles. First of all, our aim is to gain a better understanding of how language-based AI models in particular work. This is the only way to assess results correctly and critically where appropriate. Secondly, we will try out various AI tools and jointly discuss them in our group. And finally, we will reflect on the potential of AI tools as an aid in scientific research and writing, but also on what limitations there are in dealing with AI.

Tackling problems together: After the webinar, participants will have expanded their repertoire of creative problem-solving techniques and be even better prepared to deal with the challenges of their dissertations as well as their day-to-day work. The webinar has a unique content each time that it occurs, because it is driven by the question: What are the problems that you and your group most wish to solve?

What's next? Are you nearing the end of your doctoral project and planning a career in academia? Maybe you already are a Postdoc and need further orientation on how to finance your future research? In this Open Door Talk, the team of Freie Universität’s research funding service will inform you about funding options for postdoctoral research projects.
They will introduce funding opportunities for the various disciplines from a postdoc perspective and present a short overview of interdisciplinary and discipline-specific programs and their requirements as well as tipps and information regarding proposal writing.

Writer's Block and Procrastination: When the writing does not flow – which it probably will at some point during a PhD – the terms »writer’s block« and »procrastination« quickly enter into the minds of many academics. However, it’s not obvious what these terms convey beyond the feeling that the writing does not go as one had hoped or expected. In this workshop, therefore, participants will have the chance to analyze their writing processes in detail: Participants will identify the things that do work for them, describe very carefully the challenges that they do face, and develop individual solutions for the writer’s block and/or the procrastination that keeps them from writing.     

Writing Week 2025: Book an entire week to learn about Self-management for the scientific writing process, discuss about procrastination and just write – alone and in tandems! Use the opportunity to establish writing groups.