Graduate School of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Chemical Colloquium

Graduate students a required to participate in the chemical colloquium of the Faculty of Chemistry. The current schedule can be found here.

Seminars

The various scientific teams organize seminars where graduate students can present and critically discuss their own scientific work as well as recent publications within or outside of their field. The subjects of the seminars of all working groups can be found in the electronic teaching program of Bielefeld University here.

Workshops

Each graduate student is supposed to give one or two presentations about the progress of their dissertation project. These presentations will be given at Graduate School workshops, which are organized biannually by the student members of the Graduate School’s steering committee. Each presentation should be aimed at stimulating scientific communication and discussion between the participating members of the Graduate School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Ring Lectures

Faculty members and guest scientists may offer ring lectures on special topics, either in the form of a block seminar or as a (bi-)weekly lecture course. Alternatively, lecture courses of other faculties (e.g., Biology, Physics, Informatics, etc.) or those of other Graduate Schools may be attended upon approval. In addition, other qualifications (e.g. foreign languages, patent law, business or project management) may be accepted as adequate practical performance when a corresponding certificate has been issued.

Practical Courses

Practical courses offer the opportunity to the Graduate School’s students to study additional experimental or theoretical methods besides their own dissertation subject.

Subject specific arrangements are practical courses which are offered by members of the International Graduate School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The graduate students can choose how to fulfil the practical course requirements, either by attending a practical course (internal of external), or by organizing and offering a practical course for other graduate students. The practical courses to be offered have to be approved by the Graduate School’s steering committee and may also be performed externally. Short-term guest visits to external working groups may be accepted as practical course upon application.

Soft Skill Courses

In addition to courses on topics in the realm of chemistry-related professional training, graduate students have the opportunity to improve their soft skills by attending courses particularly aimed to that effect. Such courses are either organized sporadically by the Graduate School and on regular terms by Bielefeld University’s department ‘Personnel development for researchers and teachers’. The program of current and future courses can be found here.

Graduate students are envisaged to complete all requirements of their doctoral studies within three years after admission.

Requirements for a successful completion of the Graduate School program are:

• Successful completion of the PhD studies (thesis and oral defense).
• Acquirement of 30 credit points according to the following scheme:
  • Seminars and Colloquia (10 credit points, CP):
    • Chemical Colloquium: Attendance at least 5 times per semester, 0.5 CP per semester (3 CP in total)
    • Workgroup Seminars (1 CP per semester, 6 CP in total)
    • Participation at two Graduate School Workshops (0.5 CP each, 1 CP in total)
  • Presentations (5-9 CP):
    • GS Workshop presentations: 2 CP per presentation (maximum of 4 CP can be obtained)
    • Group seminar presentations: 1 CP per presentation (maximum of 3 CP can be obtained)
    • External presentations (at conferences, symposia etc.): One poster presentation (1 CP) and up to two oral presentations (2 CP per presentation)
  • Teaching and Soft skills (8-12 CP):
    • Mentoring and supervision of students in laboratory courses, exercise courses, and tutorials etc.  (8-12 CP)
    • Successful participation in soft skill training courses (up to 4 CP)
  • Professional Training (3-7 CP):
    • Participation at summer schools, conferences, ring lectures, lab training courses and similar courses

You can download a short summary of these requirements (in German) with some additional explanations here.

Admission

The admission to the Graduate School of Chemistry and Biochemistry requires the admission as a regular graduate student according to the PhD regulations of the Faculty of Chemistry at Bielefeld University. Please contact directly one of the group leaders of the various working groups of the faculty about opportunities and financial support and admission as a graduate student, see here.

Registration

After graduate students have been admitted as graduate students via the Prüfungsamt für Chemie, an additional registration is required. For this purpose, please complete and print the Word document below. Thereafter, please submit the signed registration form via regular in-house mail:

Registration: Anmeldeformular_GraduateSchool.pdf