Curriculum overview and credits
Please note that the Curriculum information below applies to doctoral candidates up to admission period January/October 2024 only!
Doctoral research project (150 ECTS)
Throughout the three-year program doctoral candidates will work on their research projects.The second and third year will be dedicated almost exclusively to research and dissertation writing.
Teaching program (31 ECTS)
Teaching weeks (21 ECTS)
Each focus course is conducted either as a week-long block course (30 hours of teaching) or as a weekly course during the semester (2 hours/week × 15 weeks). See course descriptions (internal link)
First semester (October - February)
1 Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology (3 ECTS)
2 Basic Philosophical Concepts and Philosophy of Mind (3 ECTS)
3 Cognitive Neuroscience (3 ECTS)
4 Clinical Neuroscience (3 ECTS)
5 Ethics of Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence (international winter school) (3 ECTS)
Second semester (April - July)
6 Neuroimaging (3 ECTS)
7 Language and the Brain (3 ECTS)
Candidates take written exams at the end of each of the classes. Exams will be graded according to the German grading system: 1.0–1.3 A=excellent; 1.7–2.0 B=very good; 2.3–3.0 C=good; 3.3 D=satisfactory; 3.7–4.0 E=sufficient; less than 4.0 FX/F fail.
Examples of additional courses without ECTS:
– Current issues in philosophy and neuroscience
– Matlab, Python, R
Obligatory academic key competencies’ courses (5 ECTS)
- Good Scientific Practice (1.25 ECTS) (recommended for first year)
- Scientific presentation (1.25 ECTS) (recommended for first year)
- Scientific writing (1.25 ECTS) (recommended for second year)
- Grant-application writing (1.25 ECTS) (recommended for third year)
See also: Scientific soft-skill / key competency courses
Presentations, lectures, workshops (5 ECTS)
- Conference attendance with own talks or posters
- Journal and methods clubs of cohorts
- Annual research reviews in poster presentations
- Annual academic retreats
- Participation in international lecture series
