FAU Graduate School - Doing a Doctorate at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU)

With its broad range of disciplines, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) offers great opportunities for doctoral candidates in Engineering, Natural Sciences, Medicine, Law, Business Sciences and Economics as well as in Social Sciences and the Humanities. The Graduate School GS FAU provides information and advice on all topics concerning a doctorate and the respective programmes offered at the University.

More than 2,000 doctoral candidates are currently doing a doctorate at FAU, one of the leading research universities in Germany. Many of them consulted the detailed information on www.graduateschool.uni-erlangen.org before starting their project and thus profited from the services offered by GS FAU already at this early stage. In order to support doctoral candidates right from the start, it is one of the top priorities of GS FAU to provide information on all general organisational and financial questions which arise before, during - and for postdocs - after the doctorate.

Training and orientation at all stages of your doctorate

Doctoral candidates at FAU can choose from an extensive course programme covering soft skills and working methods. Each semester, over 30 workshops and seminars are offered. These include workshops on project and time management, academic writing as well as on presentation skills. Many participants improve their English in language classes, others learn the very basics of business administration for their further career. Candidates about to finish their doctorate profit from workshops specifically designed for them such as trainings for their final oral examination, seminars in personnel management and workshops on fundraising for their own research projects. Prospective professors can prepare for their tenure procedure.

A wide choice of first class doctorate programmes

GS FAU is not only a graduate school for doctoral candidates from all fields, who become registered GS FAU members at the beginning of their doctorate, but also an umbrella organisation for more than 30 disciplinary graduate schools and interdisciplinary doctoral programmes. Among them are the graduate schools of the German Initiative for Excellence, the Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT) and the Graduate School AMP at the Cluster of Excellence - Engineering of Advanced Materials (EAM), as well as six Research Training Groups funded by German Research Foundation (DFG). The most recent addition to the programmes on offer was a doctorate programme on Islamic Theology in Erlangen. Some programmes offer a fast track option to holders of a Bachelor's degree.

Doctorate in an international setting

As a prestigious research university with numerous international partners, FAU attracts many young researchers from abroad. In its Excellence Ranking, the Centre for Higher Education (Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung, CHE) positions FAU among the top universities in Europe for obtaining a doctorate in, for instance, the fields of Physics and Chemistry. FAU's Doctorate Guide helps international doctoral candidates plan and organise their project at the University.

A successful doctorate with children

It is an important goal of FAU in general and the FAU Graduate School in particular to facilitate the balance between family life and work on a doctorate. "We regularly invite doctorate candidates and senior researchers who prove that successful research with children is possible," says Dr. Monica Mayer, FAU Graduate School's General Manager. In order to support academic careers for young mothers, the University offers re-entry scholarships and part-time stipends for young doctoral candidates with children.