Integrated Research Training Group "Biocommunication: Mechanisms and Consequences of Information Storage and Retrieval in Plants and Microbes"

The integrated research training group (IRTG) will facilitate integrative training and collaboration of PhD students bridging the highly interdisciplinary scientific fields of ecological and molecular life sciences. The aim is to qualify PhD students to develop into internationally well connected academics capable of linking molecular knowledge with ecological and evolutionary concepts. To reach this aim, the IRTG will provide a framework specifically tailored to the particular scientific needs of the Collaborative Research Centre programme. An essential key element of the IRTG is a curriculum tightly unifying teaching of molecular biology/biochemistry and ecology.

The major objective of the PhD programme is to enable candidates how to tackle scientific questions of molecular and ecological life sciences by an interdisciplinary approach based on up-to-date comprehensive scientific discussions combined with cutting-edge methodologies. In order to reach this aim, we offer a curriculum teaching the current state of molecular life science and ecological knowledge in a series of lectures, seminars and lab training courses. In addition, a range of courses transferring professional “soft skills” - such as project management, general communication and presentation skills, scientific writing, or English language - will be open to the PhD students by embedding the IRTG into existing graduate programmes of the FU Berlin and the UP.

The study programme is based on interdisciplinary teaching within the CRC and is supported by the additional offers for graduate students through the graduate programmes of FU Berlin, UP and the MPI-MP in Golm. The IRTG study programme contains different qualifications parts. These include mandatory lab training courses besides specialised lecture and seminar series. The objective is to provide expert knowledge enabling the PhD candidates to independently raise and answer their scientific questions in the multi-disciplinary environment of the CRC and thus assuring an outstanding qualification.