Going to Germany for a Doctorate By Ute Zauft

Nicolas Huot remembers the selection interviews in Berlin well: "It was almost as cold as back home in Canada!", says the 25-year-old and laughs. On the second day of the interviews, all applicants were to present their previous work to the professors on the selection committee. The young biologist from Québec reported enthusiastically on the research he had conducted for his Master's thesis. After the official part, his later supervisor approached him and began discussing his subject with him; the conversation lasted until late in the evening. The young Canadian was impressed: from the very start, Nicolas Huot felt he was being taken seriously as a scientist. At the Berlin-Brandenburg School for Regenerative Therapy, physicians, biologists and engineers are working on helping human muscles to regenerate as quickly as possible following an operation. Nicolas Huot performs experiments in his laboratory; the results are then put into practice by physicians.

The conditions for research are impressive

Back home in Québec, the biologist had read a newsletter from the graduate school in Berlin and immediately searched the Internet for more information. "It was clear to me relatively quickly that I would be able to conduct excellent research here", he recalls. It particularly appealed to him that researchers of various disciplines work together on the programme. "You get a new perspective on a problem and new ideas to solve it." In addition, in Germany he is working in a field where relatively little research has so far been done. "It's important to me to already publish research results during my doctorate if possible, in order to build a reputation as a scientist for myself." He thinks the chances of this are good in Berlin.



In fact, the young man from Canada would also have had the option of completing his doctorate in the USA. "But the university that I was interested in from a specialist point of view wouldn't have recognised my Master's degree from Québec, so it would have taken me two years longer than here." In Germany he can complete his doctorate in three years.

Wide-ranging teaching programme

Rumin Luo is a social scientist and hasn't worked with numbers as much as she does in Germany in a long time. The student from China has been studying Sociology and History at Bielefeld Graduate School since September. Once a week she takes part in a colloquium for quantitative methods: professors and students use practical examples to discuss how figures and data can be meaningfully collected and analysed. "In the short time that I have been here I have already learnt an enormous amount for my own dissertation", says the 28-year-old from Peking. She is writing on migration in China, and so far there are very few empirical analyses on this subject. Structured doctoral programmes offer a certain number of seminars that doctoral candidates complete together. In addition to subject-specific content, the programme includes key competencies such as presentation techniques or scientific writing.