Plants provide biomass for growing needs in a world with increasing populations, fewer fossil resources and greater threats to the environment. Plants are the basis for the bioeconomy of the future, in which renewable feedstocks are needed to provide healthy food as well as non-food applications such as materials, chemicals and energy. Crop production is affected by climate change and plants therefore have key roles in dealing with the consequences of climate change.
Based on molecular, physiological and ecological expertise, IBG-2 is focused on integrated concepts for intensified and sustainable plant production. New technologies such as phenotyping with non-invasive methods in combination with bioinformatics open up new possibilities for generating and applying knowledge about plants for a sustainable bioeconomy.
Within its graduate program "Quantitative Plant Sciences", the Institute of Biological and Geosciences - Plant Sciences (IBG-2) is regularly looking for PhD students in natural sciences, agricultural sciences or bioinformatics.
The IBG-2 Graduate Program is based on three main principles
Development of a personal scientific program
Each doctoral student is supported by a supervisory team. This team consists of a daily supervisor, another member of the hosting research group and the scientific supervisor at the supervising university. An experienced scientist at the institute from another research group completes the supervisory team as a kind of independent mentor. Other persons, such as external scientists or several institute scientists can be included if necessary. This team accompanies the doctoral student throughout the entire doctoral thesis. Regular meetings and reports to the supervisory team are mandatory. Discussions include research progress, problems, and possible solutions. In addition, the supervisory team helps to select relevant workshops or conferences that the PhD student could attend. In general, IBG-2 expects each PhD student to actively participate (with poster or oral presentation) in at least one international scientific conference. Of course, each PhD student is a member of a department with regular meetings and scientific exchange.
Peer mentoring within the doctoral group
The PhD students of IBG-2 meet monthly and discuss relevant topics. Here, each PhD student reports and discusses their research topic and progress in a peer review process. Once a year, a two-day IBG-2 PhD meeting is organized by the PhD students to present and discuss their research with other research groups and scientists of the institute and invited external scientists. Approximately every 1 ½ years, PhD students organize a scientific trip to a university, research center, or company of interest, including 2-4 nights of accommodation and team-building activities. This helps students to network themselves with international institutions.
Development of social competence and career development - JuDocS
All PhD students are part of the graduate program JuDocS (Jülich Center for Doctoral Researchers and Supervisors), here the Forschungszentrum Jülich offers lots of courses, some of them specifically for PhD students, others with more general content. The IBG-2 strongly supports the development of personal competences. If PhD students explain the need for courses that are not offered, these can be specially organized by IBG-2.
