Search for a supervisor

To find a supervisor for your own doctoral project is often the first step on the way to a doctorate. The search for funding is often related to this.

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The role of supervision

It is extremely important that you have a close and trusting relationship with your supervisor or supervisors. Supervisors are your first stop for questions relating to your research, as well as an invaluable resource of tips on structuring your academic and professional career. They can open doors to a wealth of professional contacts through their own academic achievements, and offer an example that you can aspire towards. Just as importantly, they serve as a sparring partner, helping you to question, refine and improve your research.

If you have already had direct contact with a possible supervisor, for example as a result of supervising your Masters thesis, you should generally pay attention to the following aspects when making your decision:

Is the research area of your supervisor the area you want to work in? Does your topic fit to their research interests?

What is their form of supervision? Do they give the right amount of feedback? How often can you meet them?

Do you have a good feeling with them? Is the 'chemistry' right between you?

Do they help you to find a way to fund your doctorate?

If you are applying for supervision from abroad, you will certainly find it difficult to answer these questions. In this case, possible indicators for you could be the number of doctoral projects in the professors department or also what impression you get in email communication.

Direct request to a supervisor

In Germany, it is quite common to write to professors directly and ask them if they would supervise your doctorate.

Before you contact someone, you should first do some research to find out which professor is conducting research in an area that matches your own previous research experience and corresponds to your future research interests. For a nationwide search, you can use the platform ' German Research InstitutionsExternal link '. For the search at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, please use the websites of the faculties . Just as a hint: If the websites of an institute are not available in English, this is often an indicator that the working language at this institute is German and thus an application from abroad without the appropriate German language skills has little chance of success.

If you decide to contact a professor, please send a well-written e-mail containing, among other things, the following information: your prior academic achievements, the topic of your masters thesis and the subject area in which you wish to specialise. It is important to illustrate, how your research interests and experiences match with the research done by the professor. Therefore, you should consider to search for the latest publications of the professor in question.

As soon as you have found a supervisor, you can ask them about the possibilities of financing your doctorate: For example, whether positions at the department or in third-party funded projects will be available or whether you need support in applying for a scholarship. You can find more information in the section 'Finding funding'.

Search for a topic

Another important step is finding a thesis topic. The degree of freedom in deciding on the topic differs between the academic disciplines.

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General differences between the academic cultures

In the natural and life sciences, it is more common for those interested in doing a doctorate to first search for a supervisor, who then roughly defines the topic of the dissertation. If you apply to a structured doctoral programme in the natural and life sciences, the topic is usually specified within the framework of the programme.

In the humanities and social sciences, it is more common for those interested in doing a doctorate to first look for a topic on their own and then use this topic to find a suitable supervisor. To apply for a structured doctoral programme in the humanities and social sciences, you usually need your own topic, which must fit the programmes range of topics.

What you should consider when choosing a topic

• If the topic of your doctoral project is not set by the structured programme or your supervisor, you should consider the following aspects:
• On the one hand, the topic should provide a certain continuity to your prior research topics, while, on the other hand, it should represent a new step in your scientific development. Overall, the topic should be manageable within the planned time schedule.

Search for a funding

Depending on the academic discipline, the ways to finance a doctorate in Germany differ. Basically, there are four different ways:

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Applying for academic staff positions

You can do your doctorate as part of an academic staff position. These positions are usually temporary and part-time. Basically, there are two different types of positions you can apply for in Germany:

As an academic employee paid by FSU, you are employed by your supervisors institute. One part of your duties will be supporting your supervisor in carrying out tasks within his or her institute. This includes assisting with teaching Bachelor and Masters degree students, working on research and helping with departmental administration. Another part of your duties will be working independently on your own doctoral project.

As an academic employee in a programme funded by a third party, your work will focus more on the projects research programme, as well as on completing your own doctoral project. As practices vary depending upon the discipline and the source of funding, be sure to clarify with your supervisor how the larger research programme and your own research project will be connected and how much time you will have to conduct research for your thesis. In these positions, you do not usually have to take on tasks of the chair, such as teaching.

If you would like to apply for these positions from abroad, it is important to check the requirements stated in the job advertisement. Especially for positions in the humanities and social sciences, knowledge of German is often an important requirement, as the working language at the institute and in teaching is often German. In the natural and life sciences, English is more widely used as the teaching and working language at institutes. The language in which the advertisement is written often gives an indication of what language skills are expected.

You can find the job market of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena here .

Applying to a structured doctoral programme

You can do your doctorate within a structured doctoral programme. This path to a doctorate is more widespread internationally than in Germany. Increasingly, however, doctoral research as part of a structured doctoral programme is also being offered in Germany – especially in the natural and life sciences.

In structured doctoral programmes, doctoral researchers conduct their research based on a common research topic - thus the topic of the doctorate cannot be chosen freely and must fit the thematic focus of the programme. The doctoral researchers are supervised in teams and therefore do not have only one doctoral supervisor as in individual doctorates. Funding is usually provided either through the programmes own positions or scholarships.

You can also apply for acceptance to such a programme from abroad. There are more than 20 graduate schools, research training groups and structured doctoral programmes at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. You can find an overview of the programmes here . There you will also find information on how often calls for applications take place in the respective programmes.

Applying for a doctoral scholarship

There are many different scholarships for doctoral researchers. The application procedure of the individual scholarship programmes varies greatly. Before you can apply for a scholarship, you already need a supervisor and a topic.

Most scholarships in Germany are awarded by the 13 organisations for the promotion of young talent . The state of Thuringia finances state graduate scholarships for doctoral researchers at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. A common scholarship for foreign doctoral researchers is the DAAD Research FellowshipExternal link .

In addition to these subject-independent scholarships, there are also numerous subject-specific scholarships . Many of these scholarships are publicly advertised. You can find some current announcements here . To search for subject-specific scholarships, we also recommend the mystipendium databaseExternal link for German doctoral researchers or the