Research training groups

The University Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz considers the promotion of early-career researchers to be one of its central tasks. In recent years, the university has established a comprehensive program of structured education for graduates, encompassing all areas of the university, restructuring existing activities to promote early-career researchers, and developing new kinds of courses.

To comply with the strategy of striving for excellence at JGU, this structured doctoral training system comprises three levels. As a basis, a centralized university-wide General Postgraduate Program offers interdisciplinary training, such as in soft skills. In the specialized doctoral training groups, doctoral candidates are taught how to confront subject-related and methodological issues in subject-specific groups, with the aim of further structuring the doctoral phase of their studies. The second level consists of the DFG Research Training Group (GK 2015:Life Sciences, Life Writing), international postgraduate programs, and the Graduate School of Excellence.

At the third level – the Gutenberg Academy for Early-Career Researchers – the University of Mainz pursues an exclusive mentoring concept that is reserved for the university’s 25 top doctoral candidates and artists. The program provides its participants with the opportunity to engage in interdisciplinary scholarly exchange at the highest level. Junior members are paired with both experienced scholars from the university and external mentors, all of whom are prominent public figures.

This comprehensive concept for doctoral studies combines the university’s many measures for promoting early-career researchers, establishing ideal conditions for training highly qualified early-career researchers in a first-class scholarly environment. By means of this concept, the university hopes, in the long term, to attract the best doctoral candidates in the fields it is engaged in and to enhance its excellence in its core areas of research. The University of Mainz is keen that its activities should help in linking such areas of research excellence with its general support of early-career researchers. In this way, such areas of excellence can serve as exemplars for all its activities promoting early-career researchers.